E-Force – The Curse… (Mausoleum Records)

Monday, 28th April 2014
Rating: 6.5/10

The forgotten man in Voivod’s career, Eric Forrest fronted and played bass during the band’s least visible era, which was the mid-90s up through the early 00s. Even though that period didn’t have the draw of Nothingface or the current Target Earth era, the Negatron and Phobos albums are legitimate, with Forrest’s rough and fizzy vocal approach hardly resembling the zany-brain offerings of Snake Belanger. Forrest would leave Voivod in 2001 and launch E-Force, which has been his main project since. And judging by a song title such as “The Curse of the Cunt,” Forrest and team have a way to go if they want to catch up to the unvarnished sci-fi blend of Voivod…

Supposedly a loose concept album about women, the temptation of women, and the various quandaries that emerge from women and the temptation of, The Curse… amounts to a heads-down, redeemable thrash offering. The riffs don’t have a terrible amount of flexibility; they’re pretty up-the-gut, which does give cuts like “Perverse Media” and “Your Beloved Hate” some traction. Forrest has kept his throat largely intact, and if he were given more adventurous material in which to work, the results might improve. That said, the only break from the thrash-bashing comes via “Infexxxous,” which oddly enough, is the song that borrows the most from Forrest’s previous band.

Considering the band hasn’t done themselves any favors by using a middle school-level cover and lyrical approach (here’s an idea: Stay away from shady ladies), The Curse… comes in short and in essence, sounds quite run-of-the-mill. Total bummer; Forrest has never gotten his just due, and it doesn’t appear that he’ll be getting it anytime soon with an album as juvenile in presentation as The Curse…

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