Album Review: Forevermore - 'Telos'

Familiarity can swing two ways. It can work out for a band’s entire career, allowing them to still add something new to their catalogue without polarising their existing fanbase. On the other hand, a new band can put out their debut, which, while sounding polished and professional, largely adds nothing to the culture surrounding it. Forevermore’s 'Telos' fits firmly into the latter category.

It’s as if Forevermore opened up a metal 101 handbook, took it literally and placed it all together until it became an album. “Do we have crashing chinas, a repetitive riff, a breakdown and screamed vocals?” “Yep!” “Right, put it all together and that’s it for the day; we’ll come back for the next nine days and do the exact same thing.” It’s easy to see similarities to Northlane in certain tracks, such as 'Harbor Lights', but Forevermore fail to provide any sense of ambience or purpose like the Sydney-siders have arguably successfully achieved. With no notable break from a formula through its 10-track run, it’s possible to reach the end of 'Telos' without registering much that will stick with the listener.

A caveat before this seems too harsh for a debut effort; by no means does the album sound horrible as, in fairness, the production is actually its best attribute, but there is nothing new to attract fans to the band.

Admittedly, the recurring riff during opener ‘Force Fed’ does encourage the listener to headbang along, but when tracks like 'The Great Divide’ jump straight into a breakdown, it’s hard not to think that we’ve heard this all before, and by much better bands. Furthermore, clean vocals are seemingly placed at random intervals throughout the record; it’s as if they were an afterthought after someone asked, “should we get at least some clean singing in to gain the metalcore tag?" However, these vocals are present in album highlight 'Transcendence', with a soaring riff coupled with frantic drums and clean vocals, but the song is unfortunately brought crashing back down into the same slump as the rest of the album all too quickly.

Forevermore’s debut 'Telos' is an entirely passable introduction, where extra effort on achieving studio perfection must be noted. The skill of all members is evidently there, but listeners will easily tire of Forevermore’scontinuous adherence to the same song structure, track after track. Their follow up may remedy these issues, so it will be interesting to see if the band can redeem themselves.

1. Force Fed

2. The Great Divide

3. Wormtongue

4. Transcendence

5. Lackluster

6. State Of Gold

7. Bitter Years

8. Paper World

9. The Wager

10. Harbor Lights