Reviewed! Serianna - Define Me

Serianna

Define Me

Bullet Tooth

“I can’t forget who you are,” shouts Serianna on “Like Glass,” the opening bombardment off their latest studio effort Define Me, and chances are by the time your iPod turns over to the next track, you’ll not soon forget who Serianna is.

Unlike many, many, many of Serianna’s metal brethren who frontload their releases with the best they have to offer, Define Me really takes off near its midway point with the nearly unexplainable “Drifter,” one of the most unique tracks you’ll ever find among metal album track listings. This track is subtle, emotional, atmospheric, dense, and a boatload of other adjectives, and though it’s perhaps Define Me’s least heavy outing, it’s probably the album’s strongest track. If nothing else it proves that there is much more to Serianna than chugging, breakneck riffing and deafening percussion, which you’ll find in spades on the very next track “Snake Oil Salesman.” What Serianna does better than a lot of other bands of their ilk is balance the light and the dark, or in their case, the guttural and the clean. Hell, their clean output soars to heights you’ll not hear many other places today. In another ironic twist, “The Fallout” is one of the better moments throughout Define Me, and it’s unique because it’s purely instrumental.

Rest assured however, because if you’re gravitating to Define Me to hear some crushing metal constructed solely to move mosh pits and shatter ears, there’s more than enough of that here to go around (“Pariah,” “Burial Ground,” “Remove Rebuild”).

With Define Me, be patient. Invest a little bit of time and let it get to where it needs to be, and you’ll be rewarded, it’s as simple as that. There are treasures here – you just need to dig for them.       

Grade: B

Go Download: “Snake Oil Salesman”