(Melodic Death Metal) Enforsaken - The Forever Endeavor - 2004, APE (image+.cue), lossless

Over the last 4 years the US has seen a huge movement surface known as the metal core movement. This movement has built it’s self on dissected IN FLAMES riffs melded with crunchy breakdowns, and stable drumming. While this style of music has it’s high points, it’s quickly become over saturated, and only furthers the disparity between, European quality and American mediocrity. Because of this sad fact, when I first spun ENFORSAKEN I could not believe they were from the heart of America, their level of songwriting was so high, and their solo’s so epic, I swore they were from Europe.
ENFORSAKEN play melodic death metal, a style characterized by the mid 90’s Gothenburg movement, and also a style which probably has more bands in it than any other metal subgenera. Yet despite Gothenburg’s relatively closed borders, and characteristic guitar make up, a few bands have managed to escape such confines and keep the music original; ENFORSAKEN are one of these select few. Taking a definite DARK TRANQUILITY path as opposed to the more upbeat route via IN FLAMES, ENFORSAKEN are an emotional roller coaster, whose sincerity and passion, shine pervasively.
Ten tracks constitute this album with a lifespan lasting nearly one hour, yet if this aspect was not good enough, ENFORSAKEN offer so many hooks and catches that one can play this album again, and again, and again. I have literally been spinning this album non stop over the last month, and still find it enjoyable every time. The songs on this album are just brilliantly written, and in my opinion flow perfectly. Enforsaken dynamically capture the European tradition of melodic death, by interweaving solos into almost every song. These solos aren’t the bullshit metal core kind that last 5 seconds either, they are bad ass ones that often excel upwards of 30 seconds.
ENFORSAKEN have their own unique song structures and don’t rely on the traditional Gothenburg repetition, which so many of these bands use. This is probably becuase ENFORSAKENhave the musicanship to back their shit up. Firstly the drummer on this album kicks ass, he has a great control of the double bass, and is in excellent unison with the guitars. He also isn’t afraid to throw in a few twist and turns, eliminating the chance for a lot of potential banality. The guitar work has a lot of variation and freedom as well, yet still stays catchy and cohesive, making sure the songs don’t come of as discordant. The vocals are very well done also, very powerful and throaty. I must profess, however, that, the clean vox, which fortunately only appear on a few songs, are not up to par with the rest of the music, and sound a little to happy for the otherwise dark, and intense atmosphere of this album.
In conclusion, ENFORSAKEN are so good they make me proud to be from America. Like AGALLOCH, ENFORSAKEN, show that even America has a dark, unrestricted, side to it. This is one of the best Mellodeath albums ever, and stands shamelessly above the masses of watered down, drawn out, IN FLAMES clones, which haunt our metal community. If you are smart you will immediately buy this album, and fortunately since this album is released on Century Media, it will not be hard to track down. Hail ENFORSAKEN, I can only hope the next album will be this good.
Top 10 material
(c) WIndrider /metal-archives.com/