What: Adema, their top 30 debut.

Why they might sound familiar: Adema's first single, "Giving In," has blanketed radio play lists everywhere and done respectable business on MTV.

You'll like them if: You like powerful, reliably angst-ridden metal with both melody and hooks.

Their story in a nutshell: Lead singer Marky Chavez is the half-brother of Korn's Jonathan Davis, a fact that has led some to label Adema -- and they hate this -- Lil' Korn. Drummer Kris Kohls used to be in Bakersfield band Videodrone, an original signee to Korn's label. Kohls hooked up with Chavez, guitarists Mike Ransom and Tim Fluckey, and bassist Dave DeRoo, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"There's a connection [to Korn], definitely," Kohls agrees. "We all grew up with them, you know, Marky being Jon's brother and all that. They're friends of ours. The thing that's funny to me is that though they're one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- rock band of the last 10 years, or the last decade, or whatever, I think it's weird, people put this thing about their influence on us. There is this high-publicized thing about, 'They sound like Korn, half-brother this or that, whatever.' And it's like, yeah, of course there's gonna be an influence there, but they influence every band. If you listen to, like, probably 99 percent of rock bands that are out there, I could name 10 bands right now -- I won't, but I could -- that sound way more like Korn than we do."

On why getting famous is the best revenge: "I had this girlfriend that's like, 'You're never gonna make it,'" Kohls remembers. "Two months ago she emails me, and she's like, 'Remember? I always believed in you; I always told you that you were going to be a rock star.' And I'm like, 'I don't remember that at all.'"

On the benefits of self-reliance: "I think you should live life the way you want to live it," says Chavez, who, at 22 years old, is living the dream of every post-adolescent American male. "People are always going to be telling you, 'You're not good enough to do this, you should be safe and do this, and you know, push the pencil all day, and work for [someone else].' I personally like working for myself. Yes, I work for a record label, but at the end of the day, I own my songs; I own the way they go; and that's peace for me. I can live my life like that and look back and go, 'I did something very, very special that not everyone can do."

Adema, battling their demons: "[Adema] was kind of like a personal diary of the things that had occurred to me in the last three years of my life," Chavez says. "A lot of that was growing [up], going through crazy relationships and, you know, personal addictions. There are a few other topics on the record [where] I was inspired by … members of the band. They would give me an idea and talk to me about something that happened to them, and then I would try to put it back through the music. And I think if you listen to our whole record … it kind of goes through a story, and for me, yes, that was very personal. Obviously, we're all going through different things, but we lived together in a cabin for seven weeks to write this record. So we really got to know the finer points about each other."