God Forbid - Reject the Sickness (2000)^{Release ID: 6247}

God Forbid is one of three metal bands with "God" in their moniker that began to rise in the late 90s and continued through the new millennium, alongside one of my nu-metal-loving brother's favorite bands Godsmack and one of my favorite post-thrash bands Lamb of God. I like God Forbid the best out of the 3, but they're the least known. Despite their great attempt to make impressive metalcore, their first release Reject the Sickness is their least known album and will probably stay that f***ing way.

Something God Forbid has that's different from bands that play melodic metalcore (Killswitch Engage) or progressive metalcore (the early Between the Buried and Me) is the thrash and hardcore influences while sprinkling some Gothenburg spice inspired by The Haunted and In Flames. Another different thing about God Forbid compared to the more recent metalcore bands is keeping away from the clean emo singing. I love this classic kind of metalcore, so why not this album? Vocalist Byron Davis' attempt in heaving death growls are a h*ll of a poor impression. Guitars are way chunkier than peanut butter, occasionally scattering generic lead harmonies.

While I won't go into too much detail in the songs because of their sh*ttiness, "N2" has some horrid dissonant harmonies you wanna stay away from if you don't want your eardrums to break. One harrowing thing is the amount of breakdowns. I like breakdowns, but does there have to be over a hundred of them!? Plus, a breakdown in the beginning of a song? YOU'VE DONE NOTHING YET!!! Thank greatness this album is so short, just a half-hour of agony with barely any speed or creativity. The lyrics are terrible too, just about romance and loathing. With that short length and poor quality, this album is more of a demo than an actual studio album. The only song that sounds good is "The Century Fades" but it fades out after just one minute and 20 seconds!! WHAT THE SH*T!!? They killed an opportunity to have a potentially decent full song!

But what really levels up the score to 3 stars is the rhythm part of the lineup. The bassist does a great job sounding audible and the drummer has impressive skills, so it sounds like they saved this album from being a full stinker like that g****mn Exterminator album. Well I suppose the more emo-ish metalcore bands like Atreyu and Poison the Well have more overrated sadness and anger. Reject the Sickness is actually just the one mold of the band's discography bread. I enjoy their later albums that are "progressive modern thrash" kind of metalcore. So unless you want a brain tumor, reject the sickness of Reject the Sickness and move on to the rest of the God Forbid discography....

Favorites: "The Century Fades" (if it was a full song instead of FADING IT OUT AFTER JUST A MINUTE, FOR F***'S SAKE!!)