Edema was born as Bleeding Tide, a death metal band who hailed from Turin, a town located in northern Italy. During the course of time they changed their name to Edema. 'Default.' is the band's debut full length album.

Majority of Edema's music consists of polyrhythms, open-stringed guitars and blunt riffage. Yeah, it is that monster called "nu" dwelling in this album. Non-distorted, funky/jazzy parts with clean vocals just affirm that. Okay, it's pretty groovy through and through, and the drummer's playing is good. On the other hand there's not much melody to cling to. 'Generator, which originally appeared on the band's demo, has some death metal in it remnants, and these bits do appear later on, too. Mainly the vocals are growled, so they fall into death metal genre too. To tell the truth, the songs are too different to each other, so I think maybe both, NUckers and metallers, will avoid Edema. If you can imagine music, where the likes of Morgoth ('Odium' era [1993]), Pantera and Mudvayne collide, well, there's Edema. I should also mention the music's neurotic feel. The lyrics are about the shittiest English ever, dictionary- and grammar-wise, but that's not much of a problem, as the vocals are that rough you really can't make out words anyways. Soundwise this is organic, but it could have much more of low frequencies.

I can recommend those who love rhythmic heavier music to check out Edema. I was sure I would bash this fucker, but 'Default.' doesn't sound shitty at all, so nu-elements should not be your excuse not to try this, if rhythmic stuff is your choice.

Rating: 6- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
12/03/2009 18:40