Gone Forever

I've been trying to touch on every corner of this era when choosing albums for this series. Shadows Fall was the collective macrogenre in a nutshell, Killswitch was the most standard metalcore band, Atreyu occupied the more radio-friendly and alternative side, et cetera. So when it came time for "the heavy one", my brief research led me to two possibilities: God Forbid or Unearth. I decided to go with God Forbid almost entirely because of the hilarious way Suffocation's Frank "The Tank" Mullen pronounces those two words on "Funeral Inception".

God Foopee is similar to Shadows Fall in the sense that they were actually fairly early to the party, forming in the mid/late 90s and not seeing success until nearly a decade later, and even then their success was pretty modest compared to most of their contemporaries. Based on everything I've seen and read, they were always extremely respected by scene veterans and inadvertently acted as a great promotional tool since basically the entire northeastern American metal scene of the era opened for them at some point, but merely through bad luck they just never broke out above the second tier.

And that's kind of shocking because they honestly have one hell of a leg up on most of their contemporaries. They were without a doubt the band with the most "metal cred" in the scene if you ask me. While most bands I've covered so far seemed to play metalcore because they were simply influenced by other metalcore bands or did a very cut-and-dry blending of In Flames styled melodeath and emotional hardcore (in a way that kept the elements mostly separated, like a salad instead of a soup), God Foopee played metalcore seemingly by accident by playing hella fast paced melodeath closer to At the Gates or The Haunted with a massive dose of intense thrash metal and simply included breakdowns into the formula that came off sounding more like Pantera than Madball. Every metalcore band was aggressive, but few of them were violent. This unhinged sense of danger is something that Gone Forever absolutely fucking nails in a way that the All That Remainses of the world couldn't even imagine. The clean parts are more effective here than anywhere else because they're so much more rare than usual and the heavy parts are so overwhelming and destructive.

I've found myself focusing on vocals a lot in this series and I think that's because this scene had a weird problem with most bands featuring both harsh and clean vocals but basically no band being good at both of them (if either). God Foopee is no different, with the cleans being clearly inferior to the screams, but I actually think the fact that the cleans are so rough adds to the authenticity. Killswitch may have hit a home run with Jones's stunning cleans, and while brothers Doc "tor Death" and "Diamond" Dallas Coyle are several rungs below his smooth majesty, their more scratchy and less tonally punched-in cleans lend a level of sincerity to the music that no amount of theatrical histrionics could dream to match. That "What are we waiting for?" part on "Force-Fed" sounds downright desperate, and the more intense than average music surrounding it helps them blend in so much more than the saccharine cleans of other bands. Byron "The Butcher" Davis's screams, on the other hand, are some of the most caustic and vitriolic I've heard since undertaking this project. He does the Shadows Fall thing of layering over himself quite frequently, but his scream is much more full and menacing than Fair's, so when the layering happens it sounds less like a studio trick to fill out the sound and more like a horde of pissed off minions preparing to eat your insides. He doesn't dig deep into the death metal register or anything, but his mid range screams absolutely stand out from the pack due to the intense amount of rusted nails he chewed before tracking. I can't stress enough how night-and-day the intensity of the vocals are here when compared to basically every other band in the scene.

That applies to the instrumental attack as well. I may be overselling the speed of Gone Forever, but I'm not overselling the aggression. "Washed Out World" has more clean vocals than it probably needs but check out that rollicking thrash riff 25 seconds in. "Living Nightmare" kicks off with an incredibly mosh friendly riff before careening headfirst into a short double bass section that leads into a bloody-knuckled Pantera section. Gone Forever just starts knocking teeth out from the word go and basically never stops. Even the melodic choruses that every album needed by law in 2004 sound dirtier and more chaotic than I'd been getting used to. There's a surprising amount of Nevermore in the sound as well, from the solos to the more skippy riffs to the way the clean vocals are delivered (even if they're wildly different from Warrel Dane's off-broadway overprojection), tons of signs point to that Seattle institution on here. And just like with Trivium, the amount of epic 80s metal in here is surprising as well. "Antihero" and "Soul Engraved" open with speedy riffs that were probably more inspired by Whoracle than anything else but they come off sounding like if In Flames was ripping off Judas Priest instead of Iron Maiden, if that makes sense. The lithe riffs that zip along at high speed and the mid paced open string breakdowns are equally devastating, and I can't help but envision the band tearing the walls off of every venue with their bare hands when these songs are played live.

If there's any flaw here, it's that the tracklist could've used a reshuffling, since the only two songs I don't really care for all that much are "Better Days" and "Perfect Lie" (the latter of which is super clunky and probably should've just been cut entirely), and they're unfortunately placed directly next to each other pretty early in the album. Otherwise the disparate influences are all combined into a super taut package and delivered with an overwhelming amount of venom. God Foopee gets bundled with Unearth mentally for me fairly often because they were both the two bands most frequently recommended to me back in the days I'm looking back on, and now that I've finally gotten around to giving them both good faith listens, I can say they both kicked ass at this niche and I regret passing on them the most. I'm not gonna review Unearth but just imagine they got an identical review and score.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Every now and then a record comes along where it just all comes together. Music, lyrics, theme and artwork create a juggernaut that lays waste to all of the other shit one has to wade through to find the goods. ‘Gone Forever’ is one of those albums. No record in my collection has spent as much spin time in the last few years as this one. No mean feat when we are talking about a collection of thousands.

Any derision based on the idea that this is metalcore is rendered obsolete as soon as the play button is depressed. The dense wall of thrash, death and melodic hooks should be enough to convince any naysayers that all labels aside, this is metal. Through and through. The way it was meant to be played. Violent, unstable and unpredictable.

There is absolutely no filler to be found here, just a phenomenal mix of aggression and melody. All fat has been trimmed, and we are left with a lean beast roaring and ravaging its way through a wasteland of devastation and despair. ‘Gone Forever’ is a completely fitting soundtrack to the post-apocalyptic imagery of the album artwork (courtesy of the incredible Travis Smith). Nine songs and clocking in at just over forty minutes should give you an idea as to the go-for-the-throat mentality God Forbid employed in creating this slab of rage.

Guitarists, take note: Doc and Dallas Coyle are the tightest guitar duo to come out of metal in many years. Quite simply an amazing display of guitar interplay. Great tone, I might add as well. The highlight of ‘Gone Forever’ is just how chock full of crushing riffs it is. Each one leading to the next with an intelligent logic, but never relying on predictability. Check the killer main riff from ‘Precious Lie’ to hear how punishing these guys can sound. Leadoff single, ‘Antihero’ is the album’s immediate standout. The leads and solos in this song are nothing short of brilliant. The logic and fluidity used here harmonize to render some of the most tasteful lead work I’ve heard a long time.

Vocalist Byron Davis’ roar is the sound of hell being unleashed. Listen to the conviction in the vocals he venomously spews forth on the line “Fuck you...I lived!” at the end of the title track. He literally sounds like he is tearing his throat to pieces to birth this monster. Dallas’ clean vocals provide an amazingly fitting accompaniment to Byron’s screams, and are peppered throughout the album in all of the right places.

The rhythm section is one of the most impressive aspects of this record. Never over-the-top, bass and drums create an incredible bedrock of stability to support the guitar. I am amazed at how tasteful some of the drum nuances are. Check ‘Washed Out World’ for a fine example.

Another reviewer referred to this album as their ‘Master Of Puppets’, and I couldn’t agree more. This one goes straight for the jugular and never lets up until the last chugging chords of ‘Judge The Blood’ fade out. ‘Gone Forever’ has that lethal combination of all that makes aggressive music beautiful.

While their follow up release, ‘IV: Constitution Of Treason’ is definitely one of the most praise-worthy concept albums I’ve ever laid ears on, I still cross my fingers that they return to the raw insanity of this bruising motherfucker for their next release.


Highlights: Antihero, Precious Lie, Washed Out World, Gone Forever

The musical content of “Gone Forever” lies between modern American metal and the Swedish death metal scene of the 1990s. As one can easily understand then, the song writing process is influenced by various bands and as a result “God Forbid” is in the position to compose an album with a rich all around sound.

You will find anything from speed/thrash riffs and double bass drumming, to melodic guitar parts, beautiful memorable solos and impressive duel guitar work. “Gone Forever” is highly guitar-oriented. Dallas and Doc Coyle set the pace with their guitar work and effectively manage to change the mood during each one of the songs through their interesting playing style.

The vocals by Byron Davis are nothing spectacular. His role is to record the harsh, aggressive sounding vocals. The band offers clean vocals as well through one of its guitarists, Dallas. The clean vocals are also far from being magnificent. The rotation however, between the two styles is done very effectively and the end-result sounds varied and complete.

The rhythm section is very tight. It’s not fancy and its not there to draw attention from the guitars. Its role is strictly to support the guitar riffs, harmonies and solos. And that it does quite well.

The production is satisfying. Colin Richardson created enough room for every instrument. The guitars, the album’s main driver, are high in the mix as they should be. Also, “Gone Forever” showcases and exceptional drum sound. The sounds of the toms as well as the snare-bass drum relationship are both highlighted by Richardson’s work.

All in all, “Gone Forever” is a solid release. The band merges successfully its various influences and creates an album that combines aggressive metal with remarkable melodies. Those who like the aforementioned combination will surely enjoy this one.

Stand outs: “Antihero”, “Precious Lie”, “Washed out World”, “Living Nightmare”, “Judge the Blood”.

I first heard about God Forbid in an issue of GuitarOne magazine, where they had a review for this very album, Gone Forever. They didn't specifically refer to God Forbid as a metalcore band, and if they had, I probably wouldn't have bothered checking this album out. I downloaded it the same day I read the review, and not only did I enjoy the music I heard, Gone Forever is probably the best damn mainstream metal album I've heard in a long damn time.

Now, before you start tracing my IP address somehow in an effort to find out my location (probably to kill me), hear me out. I listen to a wide variety of music, but I've never been able to get into metalcore. I can't stand shit like Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Unearth, As I Lay Dying, etc. To my ears, it's hard to distinguish between those motherfuckers. With that said, I had no problem getting into this album. It combines many elements that I could want in a metal album: the riffing is solid, the leads are memorable, the breakdowns weren't boring or overused (Killswitch and Lamb of God could really learn from them), and I never found myself wanting to skip through a song.

Some key songs that stick out are Force Fed, Antihero, Better Days, and Washed Out World. The album was produced by Jeff Loomis, and you can look for guest spots by Loomis himself, as well as Tom Cummings (both him and Jeff play on Soul Engraved).

I I think Gone Forever is going to be their signature album, their Master of Puppets. It's a great album, and a modern mainstream classic.

While “God Forbid” out-do every other metalcore band except “Shadows Fall”, “Lamb of God” and “Unearth”, they too like “Unearth” have some critical flaws in them. Now, this album isn’t your typical metalcore album although there are many moments in it which do scream metalcore. Gob Forbid play Melo-death with hardcore influences and they do have good riffs here and there and awesome leads but the hardcore influence here is a problem and so is the songwriting.

Musically, Melo-death is the order of the day with some good, thrashy riffs here and there. Vocally, this is yet another one-dimensional hardcore vocalist except he has a more vicious ring to him than the others in the genre; yet his voice is largely unimpressive even if far less annoying than the others in the genre and the clean attempts suck. They have a somewhat cool guitar tone and their breakdowns are just dumb. In fact, “God Forbid” often tilts the scales of their Melo-Thrash-Hardcore mix to put in more of the third and ignoring the second. The leads are the best thing the album has to offer as the guitarists put up some awesome leads. Drumming is pretty generic. There are some good riffs here and there and more than the entire genre of metalcore bands (Except of course “Shadows Fall” and “Lamb of God”) put together but the band insists on putting in generic breakdowns and shun solid riffing in its place. The band really needs to improve their songwriting as all the songs tend to be similar to each other.

On a song level, the album keeps shifting from decent to bad and there are few really awesome sections here. “Force Fed” is rather overlong and is otherwise a decent opener with some good riffs. “Antihero” really is the “Zombie Autopilot” (“Unearth”) of this album. It has some good riffing with awesomely done leads and bearable vocals, the best song on this album. “Better Days” sucks, it’s totally hardcore without anything memorable in it. “Precious Lie” starts off with a nice drum intro and a good riff and then morphs into a hardcore song with awful clean vocals. The only thing good about “Precious Lie” is it’s short solo. “Washed-Our-World” has more of the terrible clean vocals; the song has some good riffs here and there and a well-done solo but it’s far too long. “Living Nightmare” starts off with a riff quite like “Rain” by “Trivium” and is a decent song with an awful breakdown section at 2:42 which is followed by some awesome solos. “Soul Engraved” has some catchy riffs and bearable clean vocals but the highlight of the song is the Jeff Loomis (“Nevermore”) solo at the near end which just pure shreds its way through at an awesome pace. “Gone Forever” is a decent song with a good solo. “Judge The Blood” has a great intro to it and follows with some good riffs and solos but yet again stomach-ache clean vocals and breakdowns invade it and relegate it to a decent song.

So is this album really worth it? Not quite but the band can be something like “Unearth” if they were to get a better vocalist and as I said remove the breakdowns in the favor of riffs. It is certain that the guitarists here do have talent and are capable of writing good riffs and solos and perhaps once they realize this – “God Forbid” would truly be the real deal. For now though, this band is still stuck with the metalcore tag.

Highlights : Antihero, Soul Engraved, Judge The Blood.

Up until this album if someone asked me to recommend a God Forbid album to buy I'd scream at them about how bad God Forbid was. Now, I'd say that Gone Forever is the only thing you need. What brought about this change? God Forbid worked hard on improving not only their songwriting but also their musicianship. In recent interviews I've heard about the turmoil the band went through in not only recording the album but also in writing. The band has said they toiled hard for the last few years, trying to make their best album... And there is definitely no doubt here that they have done just that.

For Gone Forever the band has progressed so much, it's just amazing to me. This is still metalcore, no doubt about that. There are elements of "melodic death metal" as well as some hints of thrash (like what would happen if Shadows Fall focused more on the gothenburg instead of the Machine Head and thrash influences). Every song has it's breakdown/mosh/hardcore dance part but I think, as opposed to most straight hardcore bands, it works a lot better here. I honestly don't know why, maybe because when done well the melodies can work well to weave dynamics next to the breakdowns.

The guitar solos on this album are actually very good as well. Melodic and straight but at the same time showing some flash. Alex Skolnick this is not but it's as good as many metal bands have to offer. Anti-Hero would be a good example of some of the better solos on the album, as well as being one of the better overall songs.

Some other songs worth checking out would be Better Days with it's upbeat riff and interesting clean vocal chorus, Precious Lie which has a cool sombre clean sung chorus (there are many clean chorus' on the album which kinda makes some of the songs terribly predictable) next to the heavier verses, Living Nightmare with the flat-out opening gothenburg riff, and finally Judge the Blood which has the catchiest part on the whole album (the chorus, although the verses are kind of uninspiring at times).

Bottomline? This is a good metalcore album among a sea of turds. If you don't mind a nice smattering of hardcore with your metal I'm sure you'll enjoy this.

First of all the really impressive cover-artwork caught my intention. It shows an eagle and ruins in the back, the whole scene has a real apocalyptical touch. Their last album "Determination" came out back in 2001 and after three years of waiting God Forbid are finally back on the map with their third full-length that ranges from straight up thrash over hardcore to classic metal tunes.

The opener "Force-Fed" starts with thrashing riffs and is varied by fine melodic death pieces till vocalist Byron Davis starts his screaming destruction. This track reminds me a bit of Killswitch Engage 'cause God Forbid has a big sense for melodies and then the moshing pieces kick serious asss and Byron screams his lungs out. He's also supported by hymnal backings. At the end of the songs they also throw in a heavy metal styled guitar solo...

Right from the start the second track "Antihero" became one of my favourites because of the cutting melodic guitar leads that pollute my ears untill they break with a shattering mid-tempo part full of mosh riffs and again with the angry vocals, sweet. Then this flows into an Arch Enemy styled melodic thrash mayhem! Their singer is also able to offer nice clean singing parts like on "Better Days".

Over the whole album they play this fast as hell thrash and add sweet melodic guitar leads to it and the rhythm-section of bass and drums create an enormous intensity. The thrash fuelled melodic metal leads are the highlights of the record and at the end of "Living Nightmare", just WOW!! An
Absolutely outstanding as well as aggressive record that mixes the best of thrash, melodic death and hardcore. Dont even think twice, BUY IT!