February 2024 Featured Release - The Gateway Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature release for The Gateway, nominated by me (Shadowdoom9 (Andi)), is the brand-new 8th album by LA-based alternative/industrial metal band In This Moment, Godmode. Here they continue their usual alt-metal sound while expanding on their pop/industrial influences farther than before. It's never too late for anyone in MA to check it out and see what it has to offer.

https://metal.academy/releases/48534

I've done my review, here's its summary:

In This Moment know how to reinvent the modern metal wheel. Each album is different in sound so their fanbase doesn't get tired of them easily. This alt-metal group, founded by Chris Howorth and Maria Brink, have gone further down the Marilyn Manson/Nine Inch Nails-infused industrial metal rabbit hole with their new album Godmode! After some slight hints in their 6th album Ritual, their next one Mother began to push the band's industrial side up front, creating strong anthems like their girl-power anthem of a Queen cover plus a few weak links. Although Godmode can have earlier fans cringe in dread, here the band refresh their sound into something simpler and more lively. The songs sound bolder and more organic, and Brink sounds like a true modern metal goddess, singing eerie lyrics and screaming demonic verses over driving riffs and electronic beats. With that and some spectacular solid songs, Godmode has truly proven what the band has in store as the modern metal legends they are today!

4.5/5

Recommended tracks: "Godmode", "The Purge", "Sanctify Me", "Everything Starts and Ends with You", "I Would Die for You"

For fans of: Evanescence, Motionless in White, Nine Inch Nails

I gave a review of this album last year, but I was not impressed. In This Moment were one of the fringe metalcore bands that I listened to during high school and starting into my post-secondary. I remember Maria Brink's distinctive vocal timbre in relation to another Century Media girl: Christina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil, and how much more expressive she was. Through the 2010s, this bands songwriting flailed out of control, but was still tolerable thanks to Maria's vocals. But on Godmode, In This Moment and their producers did everything in their power to remove that identity from the equation. The instrumentals are tinny and compressed to hell and back, and the vocals are just so uninspired. There is no dynamic growth or development here and it leaves the whole thing feeling flat. 

It's a shame because there are melodic motifs that sound decent, but it's hard to focus on when all I can hear is the lead pipe snare drum and whiny guitar timbre. A production closer to 3TEETH would have worked wonders, and Maria would have been able to express herself more, but as it is, Godmode is kind of a mess.

2/5