Neaera "The Rising Tide of Oblivion" CD
[Metal Blade]
Ehhh, well, it's generic and the layout is atrocious, but at least the recording is really nice, the playing is precise, and the songwriting is a lot better than most such bands.  What does it sound like?  Melodic Swedish death metal, of course.  The band is from Germany, though.  Not that it matters, they could easily pass for any Swedish band of the last five to seven years or so.  Expect snarling vocal screams with lower growls on occasion, lots of melodic tremolo picking and dual guitar harmonies, a good array of tempo changes to keep things from feeling too terribly stagnant, and songs that average around three-and-a-half minutes each.  In some respects there are a few passages that have leanings of metalcore, but for the most part it's straight up melodic Swedish death metal with no added frills, sans a few barely chunkier moments that sound more thrash influenced (in a modern way, that is).  Writing-wise the songs admittedly sound pretty damn similar to one another, but there are some standouts.  "Where Submission Reigns" has a nice breakdown part and a stronger sense of energy with lots of speedy riffing and tapping parts reminiscent of Dark Tranquillity at their peak, "Save the Drowning Child" mixes up the tempos well and provides a nice performance between interacting guitar lines, and "No Coming Home" is textbook melodic Swedish death metal done very competently.  There are a couple of instrumental breaks in "From Grief..." and "The Last Silence", complete with clean guitars accented by violin and cello, and I think that dynamic is something that should be employed in the actual songwriting process to help add contrast and variety, since so many of the compositions sound alike elsewhere.  Aside from the fact that portions of the drumming sound a little clicky and sort of clutter small areas of the mix, I really like the recording.  The percussion sounds nice for the most part, you can faintly hear the bass making itself known, and the vocals sound fine.  A little up front in the mix, but barely.  The best part of the entire affair is that the guitar tone is perfectly honed and crisp, filling the space and totally running the show, which is exactly how it should be with this stuff.  So I definitely give them a thumb's up on that one.  As mentioned at the start the layout looks pretty weak.  The text is crisp and the overall look of the layout has a sense of quality to it, it doesn't look shoddy, but damn... the artwork is just really ugly.  It's too colorful (plus the color scheme is nasty and just clashes everywhere) and kind of has the look of a really goofy atmospheric goth metal CD instead of one that sounds like this.  The lyrics don't really hit me but I have to give the band credit for taking on a variety of topics, from personal hardships to hints at socio-political commentary through attacks on genocide, sexual abuse, etc.  I don't know, I feel bad giving this a 6/10 because it is of greater quality than a lot of this stuff, but the songwriting's not consistently memorable enough to throw it to the next level, especially since this style is so played out right now.  Had this come out five years ago I probably would've liked it a lot more, but there's too much of this style floating around right now to allow anything that doesn't really push for more power to truly catch my attention.  I'm confident that this band has the talent at their disposal to succeed, and they're close, but this record hasn't quite hit the mark.  Not bad, though.  Less discerning fans of this approach should give this one a shot. (6/10)
Running time - 42:36, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Where Submission Reigns, Save the Drowning Child, No Coming Home, The Last Silence]
Metal Blade Records - http://www.metalblade.com

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