Neaera
Album: Armamentarium
Release Date: March 4, 2008
Label: Metal Blade Records

Track Listing
01. Spearheading the Spawn
02. Tools of Greed
03. Armamentarium
04. Synergy
05. Harbinger
06. In Loss
07. The Orphaning
08. The Escape from Escapism
09. Mutiny of Untamed Minds
10. The Need for Pain
11. Liberation
12. The Cleansing Void

Reviewer: Eric

Neaera is another band that is hard to say what kind of music they are. All the scene kids on Wikipedia say they are metalcore, but if you listen to their last two albums, this one and the last one, you won't hear that much metalcore in there. Neaera is a lot like Darkest Hour in ways, their sound is debatable within the metalcore and melodic death metal genres. Either way you look at it Armamentarium is alright, but seems a little rushed to if you ask me.

When I first put this CD on I was excited, Let the Tempest Come was a surprise hit with me and it was pretty close to making it on my top ten list for 2006. These guys went in a new direction, they started to use more Swedish influences, stepping away from the bastard child known as metalcore. It worked out well and Armamentarium has the same flavor as Let the Tempest Come, but that is the problem. Armamentarium almost sounds too much like their last release, these eleven tracks could have been on the last release. I really can't hear nothing new on this record, which isn't too bad, but if you put out the same sounding record all the time you are bound to run into some rough corners.

Another flaw with this release is the the sound. I touched on this above, by comparing this album to Let the Tempest Come, but in general a lot of the tracks seem too similar. At times I was getting lost, thinking Neaera was making songs over six minutes. Whenever I checked I found out I was on the next track, which really bummed me out. Neaera have grown into a good band and it seems now they are too busy bringing out a new release every year. Is it their fault or the labels, I don't know, but maybe next time they should take a little longer.

My favorite track on this record has to be the last, which is a seven minute track. Neaera did get one long track out and this one is decent. This track reminds me of At The Gates for some reason, the guitar riffs in the middle are border line amazing, while the vocal style works so well with the rest of the song. If all the other tracks were like this one I would give this a release an excellent rating, but when the majority of the tracks are alike it's hard.

Final Verdict
I wanted to like this album a lot, when I heard there was going to be another Neaera album this year I was expecting something great. Now I am not saying this album isn't great, but compared to Let the Tempest Come, it falls short about a few points. This is still worthy of a listen, but it might have to stay at that.

Rating
7 out of 10

Neaera Official Web Site
Neaera on Myspace

Neaera - Let the Tempest Come