Uada - Djinn (2020)^{Release ID: 24265}

Uada fell foul of my opinion through no real fault of their own.  I am not a massive fan of music videos (hate most of them in fact) and when I happen to catch one of Uada's on YouTube a while back it just annoyed me.  All vocalists seem to feel the need to become overly expressive in their music videos to the point of being cringey and despite me being unable to really find fault with the music itself I just got the hump with the band and did not bother with them for a number of years as a result.

Having now realised that the only way to avoid getting annoyed with music videos is to not watch them in the first place, I have refocused my energy into listening to the album to see if the lack of visual gripes helps me warm to the band any better and in all honesty it has not.  The problem with Uada is that they are very good with finding a level and sticking with it.  In fact, they are too good at it.  I am all for a bit of melodicism in my black metal, in fact I actively seek it on a consistent basis.  In order for the inclusion of melodic content to be successful though it has to be part of a bigger picture and I am not sure that Uada actually have a bigger picture.  To say Djinn is riddled with melody is not an understatement by any means.  In the main this is all that defines the album, racing tempos and melodic slabs of song structures that just go on for what feels like hours.  I mean the shortest track on here is six minutes and fifty seconds and there are two tracks that are over the thirteen minute mark as well.  That is not necessarily a problem if you have enough variety in play to keep things interesting but the overall memory I get across an hour of music is a virtually non-stop wailing tremolo (yes, I know it is a black metal album).

When they put their mind to it, Uada can make for some interesting riff structures (album closer Between Two Worlds has one such moment, buried in the mid-third of the song where things take on a more doomy tone for a couple of occasions, freeing my dulled brain momentarily from another track that leaks melodies like a pierced balloon does air.  Far all the richness of the melody and for all the effort that has obviously gone into Djinn it is very one dimensional and even without music video accompaniment remains a struggle to get through.