Forgotten Tomb : "Hurt Yourself and the Ones You Love"

Some how their last album "And Don't Deliver Us From Evil" slipped by me so I missed the transition from "Under Saturn Retrograde" to this album, which is a much more slick and groove laden affair, than their more black metal earlier work. This guys are no doubt fine musicians and no too shabby in the song writing department so I'll give this one a shot. The very straight forward metal of "King Of Undesirables" reminds me too much of old Sentenced or any 90's melodic death metal. The more commercial metal sound which is thick on groove almost to a Slipknot level, somehow works on "Bad Dreams Come True". On the dark and melodic title track we are really getting somewhere, the lyrics are as scathing as the delivery it catches you feeling like a lonely junkie in a closet not unlike some of Nachtmystium's more introspective and downtrodden moments.They recall some of Dissections catchier "Reinkaos" era moments with the blackened head banger,"Mislead the Snakes".


 The slower melodic guitar passages that coast over the second half of the song add another layer of depth, and are a pretty clear indication of how this band has grown. The pounding chant of "Dread the Sundowns" chorus as a much more massive Behemoth scope to it compared to what you might have heard from the band before. They do get a little blasty, on that one , but there is not much of that elsewhere on the album. "Swallow the Void" starts off like Chelsea Wolfe's "Feral Love", but proves to be more of an outro than an actual song.This one might be a little to mall metal for me , but never the less, I'll round this one up to an 8 as it shows a lot of growth for the band.