Comprised of Scott Brown (guit/voc), Dave Friedrich (bass/voc) and Mike Hegarty (drums), FORCED is an infernal trio hailing from NY city !
They released their 1st EP some months ago and it's something pretty different from what usually display bands that revendicate to "have grew up in and around the NYHC scene" and "carry themselves like the hardcore bands they grew up digging, that is DIY and pissed as fuck!". Sludge/Doom/HC, until then nothing abnormal in this abrasive mixture but if you had more than serious hints of Black and Death Metal, then you've got something pretty explosive, extremely sick, dark and heavy and if you think there's only thrash missing here, you'd be wrong cause there's even a few raw and basic blasting riffs that could quickly make any nun headbang !!!
And do those various influences, from Converge to Hooded Menace, while not forgetting Vastum, Craft and Neurosis, plus maybe early At The Gates and a few scandinanvian blackheads, get blended all together homogenouesly ? Fuck yes, pretty well !!! Consistently and smoothly through a constant heaviness, a straight and massive rythmic and great shared vocals from raw and guttural on one side to abrasive and filthy on the other (I especially dig the 1st moments of "at empire's end" with those vicious pukes sounding like Dopethrone's Vincent Houde).
Out of the 5 songs I think that "Accursed Share", "At Empire's End" and "Lost Life" are the most representative of the bands sound, alternating perfectly fast shredding parts with doom-laden mid-tempos, sometimes a bit too short though (songs are averagely 5 minutes long but some length development would not have been unnecessary... this should come with time) but on the other hand there's never to favour too much brutality and fastness.
Devours Everything" got maybe the fastest tempo until the end of its first part, the brutal acceleration at 1:00 is amazing and sounds like harsh blackened thrash, even the slower mid-tempo which follows is different from the others, more menacing and "northern"-typed than doomy.
Last song "Partitioning the Sensible" starts also in a furious way but this time with strong blasting HC overtones, again with an ultimate alternance of almost crust/punkish vocals and raspy, throaty screams, just like in "Accursed Share" there's in this one too a dark refined heaviness that reminds Scott Kelly's and his buddies of Neurosis - period "Enemy of the Sun", certainly too brief here again...
Here's a band that won't help to make the classification of the genres clearer hahaha !!! but how could we complain about that ? so much heaviness in such a perfectly mastered boiled mixture of most extreme UG Styles needs a well deserved attention. Sure this is a 1st effort and as said it needs more development in the balance and digestion of all those influences but FORCED is a solid newcommer to count on from now !!!
Here's a band that won't help to make the classification of the genres clearer hahaha !!! but how could we complain about that ? so much heaviness in such a perfectly mastered boiled mixture of most extreme UG Styles needs a well deserved attention. Sure this is a 1st effort and as said it needs more development in the balance and digestion of all those influences but FORCED is a solid newcommer to count on from now !!!
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