BAND HISTORY
We have gathered here today to witness the funeral of the former Bay-Area thrash-metal band
Forbidden and their last album called
Green, lets start with a quiet minute...no we don't have time for that, let us have a look of what they left instead. From being a typical prototype thrash band from the Bay-Area in San Francisco where other bands emerged such as
Testament and
Exodus who became legendary in the genre. In
Forbidden's early days they played somewhat classic thrash-metal, the pace was intensive, the vocals were similar to
Anthrax and was in general a quite decent band. But the band had problems with both economics and lables and they finally reached the end of the line and disbanded, the band left behind four studio albums, one EP and one compilation.
ALBUM INFORMATION
What is this!? From being fast and even put out songs that were considered as minor thash-classics and now they had become the opposite. This album is not like the previous albums at all, the band is more focused on slower paces than before and the sound is wierder. The quite enjoying and skilled vocal work is now lower, harsher and more strained. The vocals are also distorted in a few songs that really hurts your ears when you listen to this, to be honest it sounds like
Russ is struggling to not sh*t in his pants when he sings. The instruments are though a little bit better, the guitars are pretty dense but the general heaviness is quite weak, the bass is barely heard but the drumming is the only thing that saves the songs from disaster. The only thing that would be best in this album would be the lyrics, the band focuses on the human itself and the power of money if I remember correct.
THE CREW
The line-up who was the last one to make their last album was done by the vocalist
Russ Anderson, the two guitarists
Craig Locicero and
Tim Calvert, the bassist
Matt Camacho and the drummer
Steve Jacobs. Three of the members were also members in a hardrock band called
Manmade God which is now also disbanded, and the fourth one was a former member in a ''traditional metal'' - band called
Nevermore. The band members performances was more less than good here,
Russ's vocals were to strained and to forced in this album and it was very annoying to hear at, especially if you knew how he sounded in his early days. The guitars were though quite sturdy and had a good sound, but the riffing was non-catchy in almost every song. The guitar work felt similar to
Damageplan in my ears, the guitars was also ruined by various sorts of edited sound effects which made the material very boring. And the bass, what about the bass, it is hardly audiable in this album. It is heard at some moments but it is not enjoyable at all. The drums would by the only instrument that sounds good, the drum patterns has a decent variety but it focuses more on the slower stuff rather than the fast ones. The drums are catchy at some moments but it does not make the band interesting or unique in any way, not in this album though.
THINGS THAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS ALBUM
Well I guess that there was some things that I liked about this album but they were very very few, almost nothing to be honest. But I will give it a try though, one thing I liked was that the band did have some speed in their material. A few songs had some speed and it made them slightly catchy, the drumming was the second and last thing I enjoyed here. I think that the drumming was the only thing that held up the spirit in the songs because of the thrashy patterns.
THINGS THAT I DISLIKED ABOUT THIS ALBUM
Me, Myself and I thought the same things, there was nothing in this album the grabbed our attention. There was maybe one or two songs that sounded ok but the other stuff was totally uninteresting. The vocals were horrible compared to his ''Belladonna''- style which was far more better than this, and when the vocals got into distortion it becamed even worse. The guitar work was boring, non-catchy and there was a poor variety among the riffing sections. The bass was of course not audiable in this band either and it didn't showed up in none of the songs. It maybe was to parallel with the guitars but I don't care becuase it wouldn't sounded better even if it was more audiable.
FINAL JUDGEMENT
Now when the main part of the funeral it will be some time to look at their and try to remember them as a band that at least tried to do something different with their music but failed. It was lucky that I found this so I could warn you, this album most be the yet only one thrash album that I really hate now and I really starting to think if I should rate my first
Forbidden-review. I will not recommend this album to anyone because of its stupid sound, vocals and totally odd song structures, it felt good to really bash an album and this album was the unfortunate one to get across my rage. I hope this was an helpful review and criticism is always welcome.
PROS
+ Well I could agree to the lyrics (though I don't care about them anyway)
CONS
- It really sounds like Russ is about to sh*t his pants
- No bass at all
- The song structures are too odd and does not feel similar to thrash at all
- The whole material was basically non-catchy
- With the edited sound effects in the song made it just worse
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Well I guess I could pick
Phat
The overall album rating for this horrid album will be:
1/5
