GOD FORBID - Equilibrium
March 24, 2012, 12 years ago
(Victory)
The best moments on this latest from metalcore progenitors GOD FORBID is when they can the sensitive-cop crap and go for the throat, like on the vicious ‘Cornered’, a riff fest filled with dynamics and varying moods without resorting to cheap tricks. Then again, we can let these guys get away with some cheap tricks, considering they invented half of them. Here, on their Victory debut and first sans rhythm guitarist Dallas Coyle, the band lays down more of the same: big grooves, melodic hardcore-inflected metal, sappy sung vocals (do these EVER WORK in a metal context, really, honestly? Does anyone listen back to these and think, “Yes, that sounds really good.” I’m beginning to wonder.) The band is so tight on this album that songs like ‘This Is Who I Am’ are strung so tight the tension is almost unbearable, which makes the soaring choruses way less cliché than when any other band does them. Look, God Forbid are one talented band and they’ve got this sound down pat. They can write songs. And they were here first. So, everyone else playing this kind of metalcore, time to pack up and let God Forbid do their thing, because they’re the one band doing this sound that we really want to stick around. (And if there weren’t 1,000 bands doing a really poor job at this sound, this album would probably get an 8.0 or even higher.)
