Forever In Terror

Restless In The Tides

Written by: PP on 12/07/2007 14:28:44

Metal Blade has dipped its toes into the metalcore waters big time as of late. Not only are they housing some of the biggest name of the genre Unearth and As I Lay Dying in their but they also recently released Welsh metalcore act Anterior's incredibly solid debut in the vein of All That Remains, and immediately after followed it up with Forever In Terror's debut "Restless In The Tides".

The material on the album is pretty god damn impressive for such a young bunch of guys. Averaging at just below 20 years old each, the guitarists thrash and slay on the songs as like they were old heavyweights in the Swedish melodic death metal scene. The riffs are dominated by melodic hooks and technical interplay without sacrificing any of the brutality we are familiar with in death metal. Take "Leviathan" for instance: its guitar riffs are melodic and interesting, but yet the middle of the song boasts of an explosive double-blast beat breakdown with rapid-fire drums and hammered guitars. Elsewhere on the album words like 'intricate' and 'complex' come into mind when thinking about the guitar work.

The screamed vocals are throaty and dense, and dwell on the borderline of understandable and "send me a copy of the lyrics"-style. They are clearly inspired by All That Remains in that the delivery is fierce, but well produced so that vocalist Felger sounds smooth despite the roughness of his voice.

Even though all of this sounds like a perfect metalcore formula, something is still missing from the end result. The songs have a tendency of sounding too confined as opposed to the more spacey arrangements Anterior used on their debut. There is simply too little to distinguish the band from the gray mass of over saturation that this genre has become. Although some songs like the opener "Destroy Us" and "In The Face Of The Faceless" are tight and ferocious, as a whole the album suffers from one unfortunate trait: trying too hard. That's right, Forever In Terror is trying so hard to beat All That Remains in their own game that much of it falls on its face for being just too generic. "Restless In The Tides" might sound slick to the untrained ears, but I can't say I wouldn't have heard this same album in a different form dozens of times in this year alone.

5

Download: Destroy Us, In The Face Of The Faceless
For the fans of: Anterior, All That Remains
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.06.2007
Metal Blade
Provided by Target ApS

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