Once maligned and written off, now ripened and more respected with four studio albums and a greatest hits collection under their belts, InMe return with PledgeMusic-financed fifth offering ‘The Pride‘, once again attempting to demonstrate their oft-unrecognised importance to UK rock.
The Essex band are frequently ones to fall victim to the industry’s suppressed memory of turn-of-the-century alt-metal, but their continued survival and perseverance amidst the collapse of like-minded distortion straddlers over the years is down to the fact that InMe chose to smarten up and challenge their maturing fan-base by evolving into a slightly more complicated beast.
Their last handful of releases have seen them pick up speed, musically speaking. Most of their late output is overrun with rampant melodic math-metal leads and nitrous rhythms, a far cry from the down-trodden hokey emo-grungers who were once critical whipping boys, indeed. This is now ‘InMe 2.0’ in full swing. Sonically an air-tight unit, an avid following ever-growing and more and more former naysayers converting. But after a few impressively strong albums culminating in a best-of of sorts, have the English rockers enough fresh ideas to warrant another some time down the line?
Well, if there is, ‘The Pride‘ sadly shouldn’t be one to be prominently represented on it. Far from InMe’s strongest album, it’s lacking in the kind of ideas that should immediately follow a best-of package, ideas that should make you think that the Best Of was premature. But there’s scarcely an idea here that would warrant inarguable inclusion on any career-spanning collection.
The sense of melodrama still plagues every croon and chord, and while the lightning-flash playing ability certainly impresses, and now and again a nano-hook will nick your melodic nerve endings amidst the thrashy indulgence, it’s all just so watery and bloated you’ve become desensitised to singer Dave McPherson‘s outpourings by the early stages.
Single ‘A Great Man‘ is tarnished with outdated nu-metallish electronics permeating the weepy delivery, incongruous Euro-trance vibes filter through ‘Moonlit Seabed‘ like an unwelcome gate crasher, while at a glance the puerile ‘Escape To Mysteriopa‘ may well be the title of a lost ’90s McCauley Culkin-voiced feature length animation, it’s syrupy scope and rote refrains hamstrung by the sheer inflation of it all.
There’s only so long you can convincingly sustain the emotional outpouring when variation is in such short supply. A few knife-edged chuggers here, a lighters aloft moment there, it’s not quite enough for the non die-hards. Not that it’ll affect InMe. They’ve come this far, surviving a decade-long demise of ‘mainstream rock’ and more obstacles than many of their once-contemporaries could ever swallow, and have just nailed a completely fan-funded album while donating a sizeable chunk to charity.
Come festival season InMe and their legion of devotees will no doubt take ‘The Pride‘ to heights the album itself can’t, but on recorded merit alone it’s difficult to see their fifth outing creating enough of a wave to affect the ‘rock climate’ in general, nor to splash many fresh sets of ears.
