The Forsaken
Beyond Redemption

Swedish band The Forsaken has been under the radar, hidden for nine long years since their 2003 release Traces of the Past which I have not heard. The fact is that I have not heard this band before finally managing to find the time to play through it around a dozen times. One reaction I can have straight away if the ugly cover artwork which does not lure a potential listener to look closer, other than that there is not much to really say when looking at the Swedes as a band, this is their fourth album and the first in a long time as we saw the other three released between 2001 and 2003. The reviews around the web has been generally very positive with one saying that it is a rather forgetful album, that might indicate a good album if internet reviewers wasn’t promotors rather than critics that is.

It is melodic death metal with some touches of black metal and thrash metal, or you could describe it as Gothenburg style death metal meets the Florida styled death metal. Either description is accurate, quite heavy and quite unvaried over the albums ten tracks which play on for 40 minutes. Not that much of a sense of uniqueness either as it sounds like rather typical death/melodic death metal, not much to set them apart from other bands out there. It is growls (fairly standard), it is smattering drums, aggressive guitars and all that are usually present in the death metal genre and none of it feels like it sets this band apart from anything else, it could have been any band (more or less). The sound is good.

I am not really impressed with what I get on this album, it is fairly standard death metal nothing that makes the album stand out or to make it grab your attention. I would say that it is okay in the sense that it is well played and well produced but not so in that it has no standout tracks and nothing that really makes you pay attention, I was actually almost falling asleep when listening to this album while I was writing on the Swedish review. It is a difficult album to pay attention to I would say, a bit lacklustre I would say.

To be honest there might not be that much that is too much wrong with this album really, it just fails to engage me as a listener so the songs feels quite dull or lacklustre you could say. It is a bit difficult to really point the finger on what is really off with this album but my feeling is that the songs are too similar and the album lacks a real standout track. It is the little things that disturbs with this album, no major issues with the album but small things like the lack of standout songs and the similitude of tracks that we have.

As I don’t know if this album is representative of this band I cannot really say that it is a fluke or if this is how they do but this is one lacklustre effort and though you can clearly note that the band could be rather good they obviously aren’t on this album. But let me leave you with a note of caution as this album has gotten several really good reviews so maybe if you are a death metal fan you could enjoy this. But to me this album is an ordinary death metal album at best, and a quite boring one at that.

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