Forever Scorned

Oh, wow... I remember the day I listened to this. I wasn't really into hardcore... or metalcore... or you know, whatever... But this album turned me on to the world of what passes as heavy in the 21st century. Breakdowns, Growling, Pain-ridden Shrieks... Breakdowns! Oh, dear, the breakdowns!!!

Sorry... let me collect myself...

Now, from that paragraph one might ask 'Why did you give it a 93 when you gave that Type O CD a 96?' Well, because its not necessarily a metal release, and so I can't, in good conscience, give it an almost perfect rating on a metal site.

But man... the breakdowns...

So the album starts off with a drone, a crash, and right into a heavy ascending riff, that climbs up the scale and then pounds its way back down. This first track has vitually no clean singing (although when he says 'force my stomach to purge...' it's talking into a distorted mic) and ends with one of the heaviest breakdowns in the universe, that just gets slower as it ends, climaxing with layered vocals rarely seen outside of death metal.

The second track 'Bridges Left Burning' has a cool little bass break after the first line of vocals. There is a wonderful part where Nick Brooks screams in a more human way, as if he's abandoned singing and decided to just yell at whatever broad the song is written about. Once again, it ends with a fairly brutal breakdown that changes tempo.

Requiem for Broken Hearts... Well, you know, it starts great, moves along at the pace of a death metal song at some points, plenty of brutality. Then at the end, you're like "What the hell? CLEAN SINGING?! This concept is completely alien to me outside of my Pink Floyd records..." Well, you know what? It works... it sounds good, not Bruce Dickinson good, but for a person who obviously learned to sing listening to the music of the early nineties, I think it sounds (dare I say it...) rather pretty. So, this one ends on a soft note. But, if you're not into that stuff, they compact all the cleanliness into the very end, so you can just skip it.

The next track, the title track of the album, is brutal and quickly paced throughout. Nice lyrics, nice vocals, nice guitar, and I swear to God if you listen close enough, you can almost hear the bass track... completely alien in metalcore, excluding maybe Dead to Fall.

Blood-Stained... is the next track and begins with an ominous intro, followed by some of the most energetic, forcefuil screams on the album. Most of the song is a breakdown (and a fairly simple one, at that) and there is clean singing that sounds pretty good, if not a tiny bit whiny. And, once again, if you are just horribly against that sort of nonsense, you can always skip it, since it's more or less at the end of the track. But, be warned, to skip the clean singing is to miss the very end of the song, which is a brutal breakdown with some layered vocals that sound demonic, howling into the ether the words 'I will watch you burn...' Ah, the beauty of the budding metalcore band. They couldn't get away with stuff like that on their newest album, I'll tell you that.

A Romance by the Wings of Icarus fools you from the beginning with an ethereal-sound beginning, that may fool the unwary listener into believing there is a soft instrumental track to follow. But you aren't disappointed, soon the music breaks into a heavy, slow beginning, followed by some quick drum work, and then into the quickest breakdown on the album. The song goes on to prove that hardcore screams can show different levels of emotion, despite their supposed monotony. The climax of the song comes with varying degrees of drumming that range from trash metal quick, to death metal blast beat quick, and then stops completely, just long enough for you to say 'Wait, what's..." and then right into a breakdown that proves that breakdowns aren't all the same. The album ends on this wonderful note, fading out as the final line "He will fly again" repeats over the heavy guitar chops.

So, there you have it. This album is for all fans of metalcore, all fans of breakdowns, and all fans of heavy, low-tuned guitars. Forever Scorned is a masterpiece of modern-day metal.