Red Elm – Arena

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From their EPK, “RED ELM have undergone several transformations since they were founded in 2010. A lot happened before they became today’s band, offering a brand of heavy metal that is progressive, introspective, and somber, and sung entirely in Spanish.” The new album here contains eight songs.

“H.P.L.V.” is the first. It hits hard out of the gate, and with a groovy swing. Once you get used to the different language its sung in, it’s not a hard transition. But the vocals are a bit pitchy. The music isn’t bad, but it isn’t anything very original either. “Nueva Oportunidad” makes use of some synths along with the guitar work, but the cadence of the vocals is off. Maybe they wrote the songs in English, and later translated them to Spanish? “Almacenados” features some softer tones that are well written, but the pitchy vocals ruin the song for me. When the vocals are bad, it really leaves a bitter taste on the tongue.

“Desafio” is really a pretty bad song, with drawn out vocals in the chorus, which just magnify the poor pitch of the vocals. There is also a longing quality to the song which gets old quickly. “Dormindo” begins with some promise in the gentle keyboard notes. But damn, I’ve said this before, but the vocals really ruin any chance that the song has to get off the ground. “Liberate” isn’t much better. The riff is heavy, but trite. The electronics are somewhat original, but again, the vocals are horrible. “Cima” closes the album. It’s the closest thing to a decent song that they have provided on the album.

This registers more on the Alternative Metal side than anything else for me, and I listen to a wide variety of music. The formula for the album seemed to be this…play a few heavy bit simple riffs to try to come across as Metal, but hire your friend to sing on the album. He has never sung before, but he has a lot of energy. Well, this is the result. It’s one of the more terrible albums that I have heard this year, unfortunately.

Songwriting: 3
Musicianship: 3
Memorability: 3
Production: 7