GOD FORBID — Gone Forever (review)

Album · 2004 · Melodic Metalcore

3.5/5 · 2011-07-31
Diogenes

With Gone Forever, God Forbid have gone and done something I had long thought to be impossible: create a metalcore album that doesn’t suck. Stop the presses! Granted, that was a few years ago, and I have since found plenty of metalcore acts that aren’t complete rubbish, but this album still stands as one of my favorites among the genre.

Gone Forever is God Forbid’s third album and is the beginning of their departure from metalcore to more of a melodic thrash metal style. This album is still firmly based on their humble metalcore origins, but there is definitely enough thrash and melodic death metal influence for you to tell the difference between this album and your standard –core band. This will probably make it more accessible to those of you who won’t otherwise touch metalcore with a ten-foot pole. Hooray for unity!

The part of Gone Forever that makes the album so good is the diverse guitar work. Wisely, the band centered this album around the guitars, without any tricks in the rhythm section or anything like that. Doc and Dallas Coyle form an impressive duo, to say the least. Their riffs are, again, obviously very thrash-inspired, and although there’s still a bit of metalcore flavor in there, it doesn’t create any problems on my end. Melody is very prevalent here, especially during the excellent solos, as both guitarists show their skills with a great combination of feeling and technicality. The best part about this is that the music does not suffer as a result; the melodic parts are still heavy and the heavy parts are still melodic. There are fewer moments in the album where you can say “oh, here’s the brutal riff…now here’s the soft part”. It blends together quite nicely, avoiding more of your metalcore stereotypes along the way. There are little to no cookie-cutter song structures, basically. And this is coming from a guy who loves cookies.

Unfortunately, the thing that does not immediately jump out at me is God Forbid’s vocals. Byron Davis, the guy who’s going “RRRAAAGGHHH” is solid, but he doesn’t really build on the instruments as much as I’d like him to. The clean vocals are provided by the guitarist Dallas, who can sing perfectly fine (his voice reminds me a little bit of Brann Dailor’s), but again, they don’t really hold a special place in the music. The good news is Davis is at least somewhat understandable, and switches up his delivery from time to time (from higher pitched shrieks to some gutterals), which is a breath of fresh air in a genre that mostly features monotone mumblers behind the mic. Also, despite neither vocalist being anything to write home about, their effectiveness is magnified when the harshes are layered over the cleans, creating a melodic chaos sort of thing.

I’d like to point out that the songwriting is extremely solid here. Remember that this is still metalcore, and that means you have some breakdowns on Gone Forever. But guess what? God Forbid manages to use breakdowns in a way that does not take away from the music at all. Yes, you read that right! The band has written in breakdowns in a way that COMPLEMENTS the rest of the songs that they’re in; they’re sort of eased in. What an idea! This means that whenever the songs start going chugga-chugga, it won’t seem like they’re doing it just to make them longer or to get more scene fans. I don’t know about you, but that’s something I can appreciate. Another thing is that the structures of the songs aren’t too predictable; each song has something different to offer, whether it be a killer solo, a powerful chorus, or a breakdown that will get you headbanging instead of pressing fast-forward. There isn’t much of the harsh vocal verse-clean vocal chorus structuring, which is probably for the better.

Despite the songs being pretty well-written, I have a hard time picking any standout tracks on this album. Living Nightmare is a good candidate, its solo being the prime example of how the band uses melody in a strong manner, but other than that I can’t choose any other highlights. I’m not saying all of the songs sound the same; they don’t. It’s just that they’re good but not great. Perhaps the reason for this is that there isn’t much of a theme to the album; it’s aggressive, sure, but it isn’t dark, or upbeat, or anything really recognizable. This being the band’s first shot at this style of music, I can’t fault them too much, as their future albums are a lot better at keeping you interested.

Gone Forever is a good album, that’s for sure. It isn’t the band’s best, but it’s an important first step for them, and is still light years ahead of most generic metalcore that’s being pumped out nowadays. Fans of thrash metal that are looking for more of a modern edge will eat this up and they’ll like it! Woof!