APRIL ART – POKERFACE

RELEASE YEAR: 2022  
BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/aprilartband/

The German outfit named April Art recently released this independent offering titled POKERFACE, and the quartet essentially dabbles in something akin to a mixture of alternative rock/metal and nu metal, which means that what we have here sounds rather modern and contemporary in many ways.

There is a good flow to many of these tunes, the album feels cohesive from a purely musical perspective, and there are heaps of energy to be found here, but the vocals leave something to be desired and fail to complement the music properly, and frankly speaking, there are instances where they are outright dreadful. The synthetic sound of it all means that it does not succeed in summoning up even a shred of atmosphere, and although it does possess some uplifting qualities and decent ideas here and there, namely the catchy pieces ‘Rising High’ and ‘Superhero’, the negatives simply outweigh the positives and make for a listening experience that is neither exciting nor entertaining. On top of that, several of the riffs are annoying and the interludes that are scattered throughout seem pointless and devoid of purpose. More groove, feeling, and conviction would have been most welcome but as it is, POKERFACE is sadly a lackluster effort and a forgettable output.