GOD FORBID - Earthsblood
March 14, 2009, 15 years ago
(Century Media)
You almost feel bad for the long-suffering God Forbid. The band pre-dated the metalcore explosion but received a relatively small piece of its pie and, despite road-dogging it intensely and opening for just about everybody, the group has yet to truly find its own fanbase. Though some of God Forbid’s bad luck may have been of its own making (the collective has clearly underwhelmed on record since ‘01’s impressive Determination) on Earthsblood the group has finally found a niche and honed it, creating what is probably its best post-Determination album. Foregoing the metalcore it helped bring to the American masses and opting for a more straight-forward, riff-first assault, Earthsblood finds itself in several divergent zones (melodic death, thrash, and strains of Pantera, but don’t let that Pantera reference scare you off) while coalescing to create a whole that is none of those. God Forbid has finally fulfilled its promise, and for that the band must be satisfied and probably more than a little exhausted from a decade of concentrated touring.
