A LOT has changed since the day I used to see God Forbid frequently. That was towards their beginning. Their early sound was mean as hell and certainly metalcore. Over time they grew with the rest of the metalcore pack and gained more popularity. Some of that "toughness" so to speak was lost and in came commercialized clean singing.
I stopped really paying close attention after Determination. I did always check out the subsequent albums hoping they regained their early brutality and roughness. It never really came to fruition. It was polished and typical modern metalcore. I lost hope on ever hearing the sound on their eps and first full length.
It's certainly not fair to expect a band to stay stagnant with their early sound and not grow. However, the ways they grew were not always pleasant to my ears and often seemed to be following a commercialized blueprint. Equilibrium is sadly along the same layout.
Some has changed over the past few years. Founding member Dallas Coyle left and the band also left their long time home of Century Media. They signed with Victory Records. That often can be a death sentence, but I'm here to talk music. I wish had better things to report.
This album is typical of their past couple of albums. They stay true to that sound for the most part. The most disgusting part of the album is on the opening track where they throw in some Meshuggah clone riffing (that fake genre, djent). It's sad when a band that's been around this long incorporates nonsense like that, although they dispute it. It is what it is. These ears disagree with the band. Anyway, the whole thing is VERY LONG feeling. It was not easy to make it through the album. Yes, they do what they do well, but so did Creed or any other band that has been at it for a long time. That doesn't say much. Each song comes across as paint by numbers. When a song starts off you can almost guarantee if it will have clean singing or not, that's how formulaic it is. It was bored for over 90% of the album.
As I said, long gone are the days of their early sound. Fans of what they turned into and have done on the last couple of albums should enjoy this. I for one wish I had not heard it.
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