Review Summary: Hamfisted, flat, and predictable derpcore with none of the exciting touches, memorable riffs, or hooky choruses of their previous works.
As American "metalcore" enters its dusk period, it's interesting to see a lot of the bands that showed so much promise (and delivered some good-to-great albums) turn out some mediocre material. I was almost positive
God Forbid would transcend their genre and scene limits... churn out some great material into their own dusk and twilight.
Determination and
Gone Forever were (and still are) great albums full of tasty riffs and choice songwriting, and
Constitution of Treason showed a band in transition, seemingly embracing more thrash aspects and seeing their unusual style come into fruition.
And then we got
Earthsblood, an album that takes all of the awkward parts of their previous album and puts a magnifying glass on them. Oh, and they give Doc Coyle way too much time on the microphone. He's not a gifted vocalist by any stretch of the imagination, and his nasal grunting does
God Forbid absolutely no favors. There was
nothing wrong with Byron Davis' pitched howls and screams.
If you're unfamiliar with
God Forbid, they represented a modern take on American thrash fused with hardcore and the
teensiest sprinkling of groove normally associated with jazz and hip hop (Usually in the drum beats). Their abilities to craft sharp hooks amongst their thick fabric of down-low, wobbly distortion and chiming lead lines juxtaposed with some true ableness in crafting one hell of a song flow set them apart from contemporaries like
Unearth and
All that Remains, though they tended to be a bit slower and much more deliberate than either. Also, as a matter of opinion, their first albums displayed some of the best soloing from this genre, all thanks to one hell of a six string tag team in Doc Coyle and the now replaced Dallas Coyle.
To be honest here, it's not that the band has tried to focus on riffing and lead lines that constitutes a problem. It's the fact that it's all pretty predictable. It never has the defining goodness of "The End of the World" had, never gets to the nitty gritty quite like "Better Days". It has riffs that should be heavy, the breakdowns come in the right spot, and the choruses should be anthemic because all of the ingredients are present, but somewhere along the line there's something missing. If you listen to "War of Attrition" and then something like, say, "Nothing" from
Determination, comparable big chorus tracks like "To the Fallen Hero" and the cut from the new album "Empire of the Gun", you can see the technicality and style remain pretty similar, but the newer material feels hollow and soulless.
It's a sad day having to put down a
God Forbid album, and I hate judging the album against previous efforts in reviews normally, but in this case it's warranted. I can't even recommend the album to new listeners, instead opting for either
Determination for some great brutality or
Constitution of Treason as a nice way to ease in to some smartly written, catchy headbanging goodness.
Earthsblood is not headbanging goodness, but instead an exercise in treading water. It's hamfisted, flat, and predictable derpcore with none of the exciting touches, memorable riffs, or hooky choruses of their previous works.
