Frontside - Forgive vs ovr Sins
Regain Records - RR053 - 2004
By Patrick Walsh
Frontside play no frills old-school brutal death metal, and
Forgive vs ovr Sins (replacing your u's with v's has been done to death by the way lads) contains eleven tracks of this type, although with numerous attempts to inject a bit of variety into proceedings, which is of course laudable. The tracks are for the most part mid-paced bruisers interspersed with the obligatory speedfests, all chugging riffs no doubt designed to pummel the listener over the course of its 40-minute odd running time. Unfortunately,
Forgive vs ovr Sins is plagued by a woefully inept mixing job, and whilst the raw sound does raise its old-school cred it removes much of the impact. The guitars suffer particularly bad from this, making any subtleties (and there are a few I can assure you) practically inaudible. This can be heard especially when the band sees fit to put in some brief lead guitar breaks, whereupon the guitar sound is pretty much impotent and makes them sound tacked on as an afterthought.
Frontside do make use of some interesting ideas however; 'Cry of the Debased' features some strange chanting clean vocals amidst all the growling, whilst 'The Accused' could almost be an old
Deicide demo, what with those Benton-esque backing screams. Meanwhile 'Rain of Purification' contains some actual sung clean vocals that could be from any number of Swedish Gothenburg bands, except they do sound a little forced and ill-fitted to the otherwise brutal nature of the rest of the album. The vocals in general are a bit dubious throughout
Forgive us our Sins in fact; the myriad growls and screams often sound strained, and the frontman lacks the necessary power to truly carry the songs properly. His attempt at an almost NYHC vocal style at the start of and throughout 'Streets of Hate' again sounds painfully out of place. Overall, this is a decent stab at some old-school death metal and it's clear
Frontside have many a good idea up their respective sleeves, but they'll need to tighten up their production values and reign in the messy songwriting next time if they're ever going to challenge the big boys. For now,
Frontside will remain a mere third-tier contender to the death metal throne.
5.5/10
Official Frontside website
Regain Records' Official Website
