God Forbid

New Jersey's God Forbid manage to mix up enough different musical styles on this, their third release, that you barely have time to catch your breath and figure out what the hell is going on before the album is over. The introduction to the album starts off sounding like Meshuggah, with those impressive off-time beats and big grooves. However, when the first song proper "Nothing" kicks in, it's an entirely different beast altogether, taking the most impressive elements of metal-core and adding touches of old school thrash, spine-tingling melodies and vocals that drip with emotion, almost awkwardly so at times. God Forbid's only true peers would be label-mates Shadows Fall, who are also leading the charge of progressive metal into the new millennium. Where does this sound come from? "We wanted to make the best music we could make, and it just so happened that when we put our hearts into it, everything came out the way that it did," explains vocalist Byron Davis. "Music is really important, so we tried to be honest with ourselves with the music." Although the band isn't up to Dillinger Escape Plan levels of technical insanity yet, the songs have enough layers and parts to them to easily confuse those looking for an easy listen. Davis says they didn't set out to write extremely technical music, but that "everybody was into writing something that was lasting and intense that would blow people's minds away, and that's what we did."