Review Summary: A good rock album that should have been much better.
Let’s be honest with each other, Allele’s debut album was fantastic. Although noobs in the hard rock community, they made all manner of rock bands quake in their boots. The album had clearly commercial melodies, but it also had bite, a commodity which is often lacking in radio rock. They had “it”, but this begged a further question: could they hold on to “it”? Based on the excellence of
Point of Origin, one would expect a follow-up to be of equal or greater measure. Unfortunately, this is not the case, but don’t give up hope just yet.
Next To Parallel may not reach the heights of
Point of Origin, but it’s still a decent effort.
Next To Parallel has a darker sound than in their debut album. From thick guitar riffs to hammered bass notes, the music bleeds. However, underneath the earthy texture is a regrettably average rock album. Screams are used sparingly, and the drumming is honestly quite boring. Nothing here proves Allele to have a unique style. While the band can pull off being an ordinary hard rock band quite well, it is sad to hear so much wasted potential.
On the bright side, Allele know how to write strong choruses, and they do so for the first nine tracks (the rest are filler). Considering their strong reliance on choruses, this makes songs good although, admittedly, predictable. They occasionally crank up the distortion in tracks like ‘Feed The Wolves’ and ‘Chains of Alice’, but that’s about as interesting as songs get. Variation is nonexistent in
Next To Parallel, and as much as I’d like to shrug it off, I just can’t. Allele have given us a collection of thirteen tracks, but only nine of them are good - figures.
