ADEPT – Blood Covenant

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8.0

• Bands:
  ADEPT
• Duration: 00:47:37
• Available from: 10/24/2025
• Label:

• Napalm Records

Streaming not yet available

It was the year 2016 when Adept released “Sleepless”, the fourth album ever and debut under the aegis of Napalm Records for the Swedish metalcore formation.
At the time, it is worth remembering, Bring Me The Horizon had just revised the rules of the game with “Sempiternal” (2013) and “That's The Spirit” (2015), while groups like Sleep Token or Spiritbox did not yet exist, Lorna Shore were just one of the many deathcore bands in circulation and Falling In Reverse was the new project of the former singer of Escape The Fate.

Nine years and a pandemic later, the metalcore scene has changed significantly between new protagonists and those who have been able to reinvent themselves, from Architects to Parkway Drive, while at Adept everything seems to have remained as before, which paradoxically makes them even more interesting today.
After taking a long break during the Covid-19 period, the Torso formation returned last year to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formation, and now returns to the starting line with this “Blood Covenant”, a new work that picks up where we left off.
Space therefore, right from the title track at the beginning, for a melodic metalcore with an almost emo tone, especially in the clean choruses where the ringing and slightly nasal tone of the singer Robert Ljung cannot help but recall the best moments of The Amity Affliction.
However, don't let yourself be fooled by the numerous more airy moments, because between a spoken word screamo (“YOU”) and a panty-ripping chorus there is room for some healthy old school breakdowns (“Heaven”) and for some nice In Flames-style restarts (“Filthy Tongue”, “Battlered Skin”, “Ignore The Sun”), which is almost obligatory given the citizenship Swedish.
To make everything more varied, there are some more bouncy moments in nu metal revival style (“Define Me”, with a syncopated riff that we would have seen tailor-made for I Prevail) as well as the ballad of the moment (“Time Is A Destroyer”, complete with orchestral arrangements), but overall everything seems to be made with the heart rather than following marketing logic.

In a context where the average metalcore band all sounds the same – often sharing producers and using the pharmacist's scale to intercept the algorithm's preferences – bands like Adept are welcome, capable of reviving the glories of the first social era without being anachronistic and evidently back in business out of passion rather than necessity.
Anyone who grew up listening to Silverstein, Underoath, Taking Back Sunday and Haste The Day shouldn't miss “Blood Covenant”.