Review Summary: The Dark Times of Gothic/Symphonic Metal, Part 14
What happened to Nemesea? They had so much potential on their first album, but they had to follow it up with all these painfully generic albums, the most disappointing being “The Quiet Resistance”.
The first song I heard from this was “Stay With Me”. I didn’t really like it, but it’s a pretty good indicator of the album’s overall sound, and its strengths and weaknesses. It’s an electro rock song that might vaguely count as symphonic metal due to a few strings and a somewhat grandiloquent or melodramatic feel, but it’s also an absolutely generic song that goes in one ear, out the other. The only thing that really stands out is Manda Ophuis’s sweet, clear and powerful voice.
Other tracks are in the same vein, but some are much better examples of Nemesea’s new style. “Caught in the Middle” is a sort of electro rock song, about finding the strength to survive the difficult situation you’re caught in. It’s a pretty compelling theme, carried by a catchy chorus and Manda’s passionate singing. “Whenever” has some powerful strings and riffs, and some rather intense choruses. “It’s over” is a pretty catchy track with lots of vocals from HJ, the band’s guitarist and second founding member. It’s one of the few tracks where the blatant Linkin Park and Evanescence imitation actually works.
“Release Me” is another good example of that, with its dark electro sounds and tormented speak-singing. It’s the strangest and most interesting song on the album. But my favorite would have to be “Say”, its amazingly catchy “Say it like it is, say it like you mean it” chorus and its powerful riff and melody that remind me a little of “Saint John”, which, if you remember, was one of the few good songs on “Tear the World Down”.
But that doesn’t mean the album doesn’t have its problems. The main issue is that even the good songs feel very generic. I’ve heard hundreds of others like that, and they don’t make any great impact or impression on me. For example, just my description of “Caught in the Middle” reads exactly like how I’ve described many other songs. “Rush” has some pretty cool heavy riffs, but its chorus is the same as most of the other songs. “If You Could” and “I Live” sounds very nice, but they’re just your two typical ballads. Basically, Nemesea have turned into one of those generic, nearly interchangeable alternative/dark/electro/pop metal/rock bands.
They sound pretty good doing it, but there’s another problem: the fact that everything about the album feels mismatched. Despite being called “The Quiet Resistance”, there isn’t really anything in the lyrics about fighting the system, quietly or loudly. It’s more about relationships, break-ups and surviving unspecified tough times. Sure, that could be seen as a form of quiet resistance, but it feels more like a list of clichés than anything else. That’s one wasted opportunity, and this album has many of those. “High Enough” is a duet with Charlotte Wessels from Delain, but it took me a while to tell her apart from Manda, and the chorus sounds like too many others on the album. Another misguided duet is “Allein”, which for some reason, sounds like a Rammstein rip-off, with guest vocals from a Till Lindemann impersonator.
Then for more mismatches, we have the title track a sort of electro intro that repeats “I dug a hole in the backyard” and “I spilled my eyes on a red dress”, alternating with “the quiet resistance”. Resistance against what exactly? I’m not sure what it’s doing here, because it really doesn’t go with anything else on the album. Oh, and I must also mention “2012”, a spoken-word part about the apocalypse that would supposedly come in 2012, as if that wasn’t a tired joke even in 2011. Even the cover feels off, with that lady with the dress and the sword standing around awkwardly and being overdressed for the occasion.
So I have my issues with this album. I’ve tried to question my own taste in music, and my own biases. I’ve wondered if I dislike a lot of the albums I’ve put in this series because they are not “true symphonic metal”, because I’m apparently that rare breed of metal elitist: a symphonic metal purist. So I’ve tried to judge this album for what it is, rather than what I expect a Nemesea album to be. The problem is that, even by those standards, this isn’t a particularly good album. It’s too inconsistent in quality, with Release Me”, “Say”, “It’s Over” and “Rush” being the only songs I really like. It simply doesn’t have enough personality, especially compared to the other pop symphonic metal or mainstream rock with symphonic influences bands it’s trying to copy. Albums like “Fallen”, “Comalies”, Xandria’s first four albums, or even Within Temptation’s “The Unforgiving”, sound more fun than this, and are also way more creative, with much more interesting and memorable songs.
“The Quiet Resistance” is nice, but clearly can’t hold a candle to all of those albums. I didn’t hate it, I think it might even grow on me. It’s the kind of album that could be worse, but could also be a lot better. Nemesea themselves could do better. So even if you want to check this one out, don’t forget to listen to their amazing debut “Mana”.
