Review Summary: Gone is Gone are Gone and Gone
Despite how many times the tried and tired concept of the “supergroup” has been attempted by many rock musicians over the years, almost always to negative reception, the novelty for the music fan’s wet dream to see their all-star favorites in one band come to fruition is what keeps the practice continuously popping up in the doses it finds itself in every new year cycle. Meet Gone Is Gone, the latest of these supergroups served as a four piece course in the flavor of Mastodon, At The Drive-In, and Queens of the Stone Age.
On their debut EP
Gone Is Gone, Gone Is Gone (try reading THAT three times fast) test the waters with an eight track exploration in the more “sophisticated” side of hard rock. Instrumentally the album finds a center stage between the hard, abrasive mixture of fuzz-ridden riffs while at the same time keeping breathing room for interludes and melodies that lean on softly reserved guitar leads and a slight dose of synthetic additives. This sound works in the band’s favor for the most part, it can be seen excellently executed on “Praying from the Danger” and “This Chapter” where the addition of piano in the low end of the mix in the former reflects an optimistic tone in a storm of punishing, harsh noise from the entourage of hard hitting and loudly mixed rock instrumentals; while in “This Chapter” the guitar lead present in the choruses give the track a very beautiful, and slightly daunting tinge that plays well to the strength of Troy Sander’s delve into softer vocal work.
Instrumentally, the soundness of It reflects that this oddity of a supergroup has the ire and passion to deviate from the expectations that would come from their staple styles in their respective bands and it's an effort that is vastly appreciated. However, Gone Is Gone suffer overall from their instrumental work not being enough to stand out as a formidable force as an independent, stand-alone project for the group. While it’s sound and competent, thanks to the stylistic choice of having a wall-of-sound buzz as a dominant feature in the mix it detracts from giving a lot of the sound a real personality. And unfortunately, with Troy Sanders of Mastodon fame at the mic, he does no favors for recouping the losses that they bring in the long run.
His vocals are rough, understandable for his musical background, but his low key growls that try to push the envelope of what is considered yelling are choppy and unpleasant to listen to. They ring with a very unnatural feel when trying to soar through a chorus like the one on “Violescent” where the riff constantly deviates with a hold on a particular note demands for his voice to match and deliver the punishing blow that the chord backed off of, yet his voice just slides across it awkwardly and makes it hard to listen to. When he isn’t hitting the right notes for a perfect performance technically, he is also falling behind on being serious with his work on a track like “Stolen From Me” where despite it being one of the album’s highlights, opens with an incredibly cheesy growl in the introduction that skitters with the elegancy of two left feet.
Gone Is Gone is a record that just doesn’t have the strength to stand out as a formidable piece despite the competency it displays instrumentally and some applause-worthy performances from Sanders when hitting the quieter lines. With a bland instrumental selection unable to be saved from a lukewarm vocal performance, the future for Gone is Gone may be gone if the band continues down the path of pushing the hard side of it’s image that it simply cannot back up. While gone for now, who knows, with the good ideas littered about on this record it's possible for this band to come out swinging on future endeavors.
