Earthsblood

God Forbid’s last album with their original line-up – and penultimate altogether – was the record on which they truly outdid themselves. In quite a literal sense too. Starting out as a musically tight, but not particularly surprising metalcore band, the quintet gradually evolved into an excellent contemporary heavy metal band on ‘IV: Constitution Of Treason’. It’s that album’s follow-up, however, that is a truly unique work. Though most of the separate elements are familiar – hardcore, melodic death metal, thrash metal and progressive metal most prominently – the combination is what makes this a one of the very few modern day metal masterpieces.

So what to call the music on this album then? Well, it’s definitely modern metal in the sense that it contains downtuned guitars, significant hardcore influences and the vocal interaction between frontman Byron Davis’ harsh shouts and guitarist Dallas Coyle’s melodic cleans. ‘Earthsblood’, however, is more ambitious than what even some of God Forbid’s better peers – such as Shadows Fall – were attempting. The band’s mission here seems to be to seamlessly blend all of their influences and while history has proven that approach to often be a recipe for an incoherent disaster, it miraculously works for almost the entire playing time of the album.

Nowhere is the band’s ambition more obvious than during the more progressive moments. ‘The New Clear’, for instance, sounds like nothing God Forbid has ever done before, with its subdued vibe somewhat reminiscent of Opeth and ‘Elegy’ era Amorphis. Closing tracks ‘Earthsblood’ and ‘Gaia’ – the two longest tracks on the record – are more traditionally proggy in their dynamics, alternating between God Forbid’s trademark thick, heavy riffs and more atmospheric passages. Standout moments are the acoustic guitar sections on the former and Dallas Coyle’s mood-defining one-note vocal harmonies with himself on the latter. A final punch delivered in style.

But even the band’s more familiar heavy approach sounds great here. ‘War Of Attrition’ is probably the most typical God Forbid song on here, but more impressive are the surprisingly melodic ‘Walk Alone’ – a 21st century interpretation of traditional heavy metal – the viciously thrashy ‘Shallow’ and the strong, dark opener ‘The Rain’, which has a brilliant build-up in tension. ‘Empire Of The Gun’ has some nice dramatic twin guitar work and an incredible chorus built upon Dallas Coyle’s clean vocals as a perfect juxtaposition to the heavily stomping riffs and Davis’ hardcore barks in the verses. It could have been a successful single on alternative radio.

Ultimately, God Forbid started to fall apart after ‘Earthsblood’. Dallas Coyle left the band, that released one more somewhat underwhelming record and disbanded shortly afterward. Maybe the frustration of not being able to outdo this record may have been a part of that, but whatever the reason, some bands don’t even get to make an album this good. I feel that God Forbid is often dismissed by older metal fans as one of those bands that profited from the hype created by the likes of Lamb Of God and Killswitch Engage, but the truth is that none of those bands ever cared so little about what type of music they were supposed to make and ended up with an album as spontaneous and pleasantly surprising as ‘Earthsblood’.

Recommended tracks: ‘The New Clear’, ‘Gaia’, ‘Empire Of The Gun’

Originally written for my Kevy Metal weblog.

Review originally posted at http://www.teethofthedivine.com by Erik Thomas


I’ve never been a huge God Forbid fan. I’ve given their albums cursory listens, but essentially lumped them in with the likes of All That Remains, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and such as far as they ply chorus driven American Metal that has one foot in the mainstream and one foot in the underground, and that mainstream foot was a lot heavier planted for IV: Constitution of Treason.

While the backbone of the band’s sound has remained for Earthsblood, essentially still driven by the Coyle bros. guitar work and the more varied vocal arrangements, there’s something about this album that’s different and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe may lack of complete familiarity with the bands prior work is partially responsible or maybe it’s the 4 year wait, but on Earthsblood, God Forbid while certainly plying a familiar tone, seem darker, broodier and more epic and developed than anything I remember. There’s still reliance on verse chorus structures and soaring solos, but where All That Remains Overcome wandered into sugary realms, God Forbid just seem a bit ….off - in a good way. It’s like they forgot to take their meds they’ve been on for 10 years and there’s a sense of mental and emotional release or something

After the almost Dimmu Borgir like orchestral intro, “The Rain” perfectly displays this new found state of mind as the track is almost two separate tracks, Davis is introspective and the mid song break is a pretty startling. And more epic, rangier tracks like that seem to litter the more standard, if still tightly rendered and high octane American metal fare of say “Enemy of the Gun”, the commercial trot of “Walk Alone” (which will be the album’s most polarizing track- I think its the albums weakest track by far) and “Shallow” and such. “War of Attrition”, “The New Clear” and most notably the excellent closing duo of “Earthsblood” (the solo around 6-minutes in is stunning) and monstrously menacing “Gaia (The Vultures)”, which between them make up almost 20 minutes of the albums 53 minute run time. These two tracks, especially with their epic length and surprising, tangible Opeth influence amid the American metal musical melting pot, show that God Forbid have got some ambition this far into their career and seem set on at least trying to break away from the pack.

Granted, I’m still not a huge fan of the band and their discography, and to be honest Earthsblood and other albums still may not get too much more airplay beyond this review. However, I did enjoy this album, and I can at least appreciate the fact that when their peers seem to be resting on their laurels, God Forbid has challenged themselves to improve and develop their tried and true sound.

God Forbid’s last album Constitution of Treason was a pretty good album and seemed like the work of a band that was trying to move out of the metal core box and into the straight heavy metal thrash field. I liked that album a fair bit and still put it on occasionally. That album also made me feel like God Forbid could have a great album up their sleeves and was looking forward to their future work.

Well, earlier this month saw the band release its latest album Earthsblood and they’ve managed to move away from a lot of the usual metal core shit. The strength of the band has always been the twin guitars of brothers Doc and Dallas Coyle and here too the duo takes centre stage with some excellent riffs right through the album. The two along with drummer Corey Pierce and bassist John Outcalt come up with some very cool grooves too and the lead playing is mature and tasteful from the Coyle brothers.

The Testament references from the last album are in full flow here along with a lot of Jeff Waters inspired riffing which is only a good thing. The only negative on this album is the vocal performance from Byron Davis. The man who put on a very cool performance on the previous album sounds tired and weak on the songs here. The band while not doing away completely with the cheesy breakdowns has managed to cut down the number of times they fall back on it and overall the songs work.

Empire of the Gun reminds me a lot of Annihilator with its riffs, The Rain’s melodic thrash is somewhere between Nevermore and Ritual era Testament while The New Clear is melodic but goes through a lot of changes in tempo and has a very cool lead guitar spot. The album looses a bit of momentum after Walk Alone’s Loomis lite shred with the last three songs taking up over twenty minutes of the album and not being very good. The title song stretches to over nine minutes and seems very bloated and the album closes with another lengthy song in Gaia (The Vultures) which is pretty good but still seems too long with its mostly mid paced thrash.

Overall, God Forbid has made a decent album with Earthsblood. The band has dropped a lot of the metal core from their sound in favour of a slightly old school heavy metal/ thrash sound and the results are good even if not spectacular.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com

God Forbid - Earthsblood

God Forbid was primarily lumped in with the genre of metalcore due to their early releases. However with their last album the band was slowly moving towards a more progressive thrash route with songs like "Into the Wasteland" and "Chains of Humanity." Couple this with their excellent use of melodic guitar passages and vocals you get Earthsblood; a fantastic work of art that shows the band reaching out to different influences while also moving forward as a band musically.

The vocals are absolutely killer on this album. Everything is incredibly catchy and so well produced that it's hard not to sing along with songs like "Walk Alone." Lead singer Byron Davis along with back up vocalist Dallas Coyle put out their best performance yet. There are many different styles of vocals apparent on this album, most of which are overlaid on one another to create a very interesting and enjoyable sound. The chants of "Blood will spill!" are sick as hell.

God Forbid isn't just going more thrash for this album, they incorporate death style grooves ("War of Attrition") and even some 80's heavy metal("The New Clear"). "Walk Alone" sounds like a mixture of old school Shadows Fall and Nevermore. The result is a fantastic representation of the album and of the direction God Forbid wanted to go with this new release. The solos rip, the riffs are head bang worthy and the vocals are soaring in way you've not heard God Forbid before.

The album ends with 2 epic tracks "Earthsblood" and "Gaia", both of which are beautifully crafted and end the album in the only way that we would come to expect. I can't give the album a perfect score as some of the songs do tend to be pretty long and overstay their welcome at times. God Forbid is refining the music they are creating into a force to be reckoned with in the future. This band is no longer metalcore instead they have ascended up the chain into a realm of their own.

Best Cuts: "Empire of the Gun", "Shallow", "Walk Alone"

Good: Great music, great vocals and expert songwriting

Bad: Songs can be a little too long

Review was originally written for: http://flatlinemusic.blogspot.com