God Forbid hath returned with Equilibrium, the new melodic heavy metal album that is actually incredibly satisfying. It’s stacked with fun riffs, interesting leads/solo’s, fantastic drum work, punishing bass rhythms and really good singing/screaming. Equilibrium is actually unexpectedly good, the mix between heavy music and Byron Davis’ screaming and melodic writing with Doc Coyle’s clean singing abilities really adds a nice touch to the album, something I’ve been craving since the early days of God Forbid. They are mature now, they are great writers and they are still relevant after all of these years. Their sound has not really changed that much, however there is a big big difference in what I am hearing. If you enjoyed their metalcore sound from 7 years ago, it’s still there! It’s just not as prominent with all of the layers of sound and creativity now. With things sounding this fresh and the album as a whole being this exciting, you would never think that they have been on this heavy metal grind since the mid-late 90′s. Bravo God Forbid, because you wrote a really good album.

In a world where it’s chaos, brutality and breakdowns every fucking 30 seconds, it’s nice to hear carefully constructed riffs and songs. God Forbid doesn’t fall into any trends and they play what comes out naturally. It’s not exactly 100% metalcore, it’s not 100% death metal, it’s not even 100% Djent (I say this because yes, they are using lower tuning/7 string guitars, but they are not Vildhjarta/Meshuggah-ing their riffs at all) or anything of the sort. It’s just straight up metal!!! Also, I have more respect for Doc for writing those sick solo’s and keeping it rhythmically interesting on the leads and random things he does. Not only that, his singing on the album is really really good. FINALLY someone who can clean sing without sounding all whiny and bitchy!

Equilibrium is a great trip through metal lane. I get all nostalgic because this IS God Forbid, I’ve been into them since before I was able to legally drink and now all of these years later, God Forbid is still able to put out an album that I can enjoy. Get this album, pop it in your player and turn it the fuck up. It’s a good time. These guys make New Jersey look good!

Pros: Good writing, playing, production, execution and every song is rather good.

Cons: A couple of parts on the album are “meh”, melodic metalcore nay sayers may shun this immediately.

4 out of 5