At best, melodic hardcore is a visceral experience that combines raw emotion with a crushing heaviness, but at worst it can be a stale and repetitive snooze fest. While many bands in the scene today don’t do much to expand on the basic tenets that the genre is rooted in, every once in a while a band comes along to make things fresh again. New York’s Go Forth land somewhere in the middle with their 2013 release Mindful.
Tonally, this is straight-up melodic hardcore. The crushing breakdowns juxtaposed with melodic riffs and lyrics as emotional as they come are the glue that holds Mindful together – no surprises there. What is surprising, though, is the way they incorporate those elements structurally, both in individual songs and the album as a whole. “Le Mans” and “Truly”, the two longest songs on the album are far and away the best Go Forth has to offer on Mindful. Because each song has more time to develop, there’s less of a need to rely on repetitive breakdowns to give the song some punch. Instead, the songs utilize slow build-ups, quieter sections where the vocalist has an opportunity to shine and one truly massive breakdown to tie everything together. These songs lend themselves to the more melodic side of melodic hardcore, while the songs that follow “Le Mans” and “Truly” (“The Change” and “Balance”, respectively) are much heavier and tip the scales in favor of the hardcore aspect. This is a great formula to keep the record interesting without venturing far out of what defines Go Forth as a band.
On the other hand, however, all of the material in between the aforementioned songs just does not seem to capture the same energy and variety - specifically, “Decision/Tradition” and “SRG”. These songs don’t do anything badly, but are simply not as exciting and innovative as the other songs. However, the interlude track before the album closer “Submerged” is a perfectly-placed calm moment before the end of the album hits.
Go Forth’s Mindful is both an album that sticks to the tenets of melodic hardcore and deviates from them. It does a good job of keeping the music from becoming repetitive, which is a pitfall in many melodic hardcore albums, but doesn’t always keep things consistently interesting. At the end of the day, Go Forth is a promising young band with loads on potential put on display in Mindful and are definitely doing things right.
Tracklist:
1. Le Mans
2. The Change
3. Decision/Tradition
4. SRG
5. Truly
6. Balance
7. Interlude
8. Submerged
RIYL: The Ghost Inside, Hundredth
Rating:
Written by Marc Saggese
