Nevea Tears

What the fuck? Nevea Tears? “Do I Have To Tell You Why I Love You?” Who decided that this was a good idea? Well, I suppose if their intention was to lower expectations, they pulled it off masterfully. This band has it down, the lame name, the lame album title, and the song titles that are supposed to be clever but aren’t. With all of this, you’ve got yourself a veritable shit sundae, with the horrendous cover art being the rotten cherry on top.

Still, I try to be as objective as possible, and in truth, I’ve misjudged plenty of bands in the past. As I pressed the play button, and the first song started up, my worries were eased. It was just typical metalcore, not too bad at all. In fact, I even liked the singer's screaming. Then it happened. The singing came in, and any positive feelings I had about the song went right out the window. The whole album pretty much goes like this: when the band just plays balls out metalcore, they do it well it enough, but when the awkward, obnoxious singing comes in, I have to fight not to press the skip button. Still, the band manages to color outside the lines a bit with some electronic interludes, which although becoming more commonplace in this genre, still provide some variety. It seems like this band is trying too hard to juggle different styles, they do the electronics well, but the singing parts come off as sappy and forced. All of this makes for an odd listen, as there are parts that make me want to like this band, and there are parts that make me want toss this disc out the window.

If anything, this release is frustrating. I can see that this band is talented, and they make an effort to change things up, but at the same time, it seems like they’re trying to shoehorn themselves into the nu-emo thing and failing miserably at it. Though Nevea Tears has the chops and the ambition, lots of bands want to do something different, and the ones that manage to push the envelope successfully have the intangibles that you can’t learn from a guitar teacher. Whether this band has what it takes to do that remains to be seen, but even if they never revolutionize music, they can improve by leaps and bounds by getting rid of the singing.