By: Brittany Adams

Adaliah’s new EP, Shedding Skin, is a solid album that will not only please their current fan-base, but attract some new fans as well.

It’s certainly heavy, but it has a specific melodic quality that renders it listenable. While there are always contexts for metal that’s purely incoherent screaming and grinding on guitar strings, that isn’t a sound that you’d be apt to listen to on a regular basis. Fortunately for Adaliah, their album offers much more than the primal, baseless screaming that (bad) heavy metal is known for.

Although vocalists, Jorge Sotomayor and Tyler Andre, don’t foray into clear-cut singing (a la A Day to Remember), their voices still maintain a steady rhythm, both between each other and around the music. The guitars and drums (which are incredibly vital to any metal band worth their salt) are brilliant. The instruments build up to breakdowns that will make you want to dance around your room—or hit something.

What’s even more impressive (and something that would surprise the usual dissidents of heavy metal) is that the lyrics of each track are both meaningful on their own and also play together to create an album-wide vibe. It’s not only aggressive, but it’s emotional and raw and honest. From the opening of “Mistakes” with the lyrics “my mistakes weigh heavy on me/I can’t help but keep dragging my feet” to the title track, “Shedding Skin” (“Oh please I hope these wounds will stay with me/like the words you left me with, I hope they scar”), the album has a clear message about embracing and ultimately overcoming pain.

For a listener who is either already familiar with metal or just getting into it, Shedding Skin would be the perfect album. It has all the great breakdowns that metal fans have come to expect, but it also has enough melodic and lyrical assets to attract a less experienced crowd.