“So pull me out of the dark or put me straight in the ground.”
In their decade-plus long career, Gideon is a band that has worn many different hats—and no, I don’t just mean the ten-gallon cowboy hat that vocalist Daniel McWhorter has been sporting in the band’s most recent music videos. Having initially dug their roots into the melodic hardcore sphere, the Alabama-based group’s sound has seen steady change across their five studio albums, with them slowly moving away from their melodic roots and even dropping their label as a Christian hardcore band as they moved into the more aggressive sound now associated with the later half of their career. The group’s sixth studio album MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. marks a continuation of Gideon’s evolving sound, and sees them both doubling down and working around a lot of the nu metal sounds that have been prevalent in their recent discography.
Interestingly enough as well, interspersed across the span of MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. are bits of dialogue pulled from a longer conversation between two mystery characters—the first, a man whose Southern drawl floats between various topics such as following in his father’s footsteps, his career as an artist and performer, as well as death and the sobering effects it can have on a person, while the second character is an equally Southern woman who seems to be interviewing the mystery man. Whether the bits of dialogue are samples from some pre-existing interview or piece of media, or fictionalized skits with characters created for the narrative of the album is unclear and leaves me with more questions than they do answers. But however vague the overarching narrative of the album with these two characters seems to be, the various bits of dialogue throughout MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. help create interesting transitions between various tracks and add a certain cinematic quality to the record that helps bolster it further.
MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. opens with “Hell for a Man”, a forty-five second cut of dialogue that is both the introduction to the album as well as our two mystery characters. The pair discuss the man’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps as a musician and performer moving on from there to the first proper track of the album, “Locked Out of Heaven” sees Gideon kicking things off with their best foot forward. A soundscape that is jagged and discordant one minute, but overlaid with a layer of ambience the next provides the backdrop for McWhorter’s punishing vocal tone. Additionally, guitarist Tyler Riley’s eerie clean vocals on the chorus help smooth the track out further, adding a nice contrast to the otherwise aggressive track that helps lay a strong foundation for the rest of the album to be built upon.
Despite the instrumentals of “Locked Out of Heaven” ending on a more atmospheric note, the music fades into another clip of our mystery character talking about making the music he wants to make, regardless of expectations and whether or not it’s received well. While this would normally be insightful or inspiring, the clip is overlaid with an ominous soundscape while the audio of the man speaking slowly grows more distorted, creating a few moments of uncertainty before the energy picks up again with the next bulk of tracks that sees Gideon leaning right into the more straightforward, nu metal-tinged hardcore.
While I find “Push It Back” to be one of the weaker tracks lyrically on MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., a bit of groove, a pair of positively mean callouts, and the little bits of electronic elements mixed in help it elevate and redeem itself a bit. Following “Push It Back” on the tracklist are the album’s trio of singles—first single “Too Much Is Never Enough”, title track and second single “MORE POWER. MORE PAIN.”, and third and final single “Take Off”.
I found that this section of tracks sonically blends together a bit, which is only further emphasized by the three singles being placed in order together on the tracklist. While each track has certain standout points that do help distinguish themselves from each other—the more spacious production on “Too Much Is Never Enough”, the title track’s disgustingly sludgy and metallic breakdown, and the ode to 2000s nu metal that is “Take Off”—I do think that breaking them up across the tracklist would have helped smooth the flow of the album and keep my attention from waning throughout the speed bump of pre-released material.
Not quite rapping and not quite spoken word, McWhorter’s vocal delivery across these tracks is certainly more rhythmic, wading across various depths of the pool of nu metal aesthetics the group pulls from. “Take Off” in particular is the most overtly nu metal track off MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., complete with a quasi-rap flow and record scratches galore. A prominent and heady bass tone courtesy of bassist Caleb DeRusha and a dynamic performance from drummer Jake Smelley further boosts the single, adding extra layers of texture to one of the more fun tracks on the album.
One of the real highlights of this record that I feel the need to bring attention to is the stellar production work of scene favorite Randy Lebouef. Each member of Gideon carries their weight and then some across the span of MORE POWER. MORE PAIN.’s runtime, but the production works to emphasize these stellar performances, effectively giving each person in the group the space to really shine and find their pocket. From the clarity in McWhorter’s harsh vocals, the devastating tones put forth by Riley and DeRusha’s guitar and bass, to the popping snare and crisp cymbal work displayed by Smelley—the record sounds fantastic and makes excellent use of various production tricks that help keep the mixes on each track varied and engaging.
While MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. does show Gideon leaning into their nu metal side more than ever before, the album also sees the Alabama-based outfit revisiting their more melodic hardcore roots. While this was teased with the inclusion of Tyler Riley’s clean vocals earlier in the album on “Locked Out of Heaven, much more than just a brief return to form, the downright gorgeous duo of “If You Love Me, Let Me Go” and “I Will Carry You” pair emotionally charged lyricism with an equally charged and soaring melodic guitar lead that really sets these two tracks apart from the rest of the songs on MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., with the boys of Gideon doing an incredible job balancing being musically heavy with being emotionally heavy.
A trio of tracks from the back half of the album—“Off the Rails”, “The Final Nail”, and “Midnight Blue”—are prime examples of the killer production work at play on MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. “Off the Rails” is punishing in its execution, with the latter half of the song and its descent into discordant chaos being perfectly representative of a decline in mental health and going off the rails. “The Final Nail” further employs some more nu metal influences with the vocals and scratches heard periodically throughout the track, but the disembodied guitar wailing provides a unique atmosphere that makes the track an appropriate followup to “Off the Rails”. “Midnight Blue” once again sees the group effectively making use of more open production to emphasize the instrumental work happening on the track. Verging into alt and even Southern rock territory, the guitar work on “Midnight Blue” will have you moving and grooving along before it leads into the final stretch of the album.
“If You Love Me, Let Me Go” acts as the starting point for the second half of the album. The track starts off with the same instrumental intensity as many of the other tracks on MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., and is disrupted by McWhorter’s aggressive tone punching through, “if you love me, let me go!” Amidst a crunchy riff and muddy, pulsing bass McWhorter carries us through the first verse. The first pre-chorus however is where things really get interesting, with a soaring guitar lead helping elevate the track to new heights. “If You Love Me, Let Me Go”’s chorus is my favorite on MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., with McWhorter’s anguished “if I stay, I would only be in your way, so let me go, and I’ll go on and on and on” having been living rent-free in my mind since my first listen of the emotional heavy-hitter.
As much as I love “If You Love Me, Let Me Go” however, I think the song that affected me most from MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. was “I Will Carry You”, which really dug deep for me on a personal level. Following on from “Midnight Blue”, the late album cut begins with a brief but twangy Southern-fried slide guitar lick that slowly fades out before that gorgeous melodic guitar tone returns. “I Will Carry You” is an emotional behemoth of a track about the pain of losing someone you care about, and the ensuing feelings of anger and grief that go hand-in-hand with such an experience. The powerful and cathartic lyricism is sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced grief and loss on such a level. While “I Will Carry You” details the struggle of coping with loss, it does also manage to retain a somewhat hopeful air with its lyrics about carrying the one you love with you even after they’re gone.
“Hard to find the air to breathe, how do I go on without you?
Hard to find the words to speak, when they can never say enough
I can’t move on, stuck in rewind, memories of you consuming my mind
As long as I live, I will carry you”
As incredible of a track “I Will Carry You” is, I have to say that MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. seriously drops the ball after it. It was always going to be hard to follow up a song of that caliber, but quite frankly I think it’s a track that has all the qualities of a good closer, and not utilizing it as such is a massive missed opportunity. Penultimate track (if you count “Let ‘Er Fly” as the actual closer, but more on that soon) “Back 2 Basics” does as its title implies and casts off the emotional intensity of its predecessor track, stripping things down and indeed going back to basics with its more sparse instrumentation and production, returning to the sounds that dominated the front half of the album. Despite the lyrics’ repeated insistence of having to “keep that shit moving”, the track in fact leads to a dead end at the conclusion of an otherwise solid album. The previously mentioned “Let ‘Er Fly” is almost fully instrumental, with the exception of the final appearance of the two mystery characters that appeared throughout MORE POWER. MORE PAIN., as the woman commends the man for having made it through the other side of his struggles and hardships touched on throughout the record. While I can appreciate the full circle nature of ending the album with a bit of dialogue between our mystery characters, I found the odd and janky instrumental left me wanting more—not because I enjoyed it so much, but because I was so unwholly satisfied with the note MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. leaves off on. Even just a reshuffling of the tracklist and moving “Back 2 Basics” and “Let ‘Er Fly” elsewhere would’ve really helped the album end on a stronger note. “I Will Carry You” is still what I would have preferred the closer to be, but literally any of the four tracks preceding it could have worked, too. Or at least, could have worked better than the disappointing tandem of “Back 2 Basics” and “Let ‘Er Fly”.
Despite my feelings on how the album was wrapped up, I did thoroughly enjoy MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. Admittedly, Gideon was a band that I was not terribly familiar with prior to this release, but I will say that MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. feels like a great diving board to go off and delve further into their back catalog. While I think the album could stand to trim some of the fat off its forty-six minute runtime and is in need of a better arranged tracklist, I do think that the positives on the album outweigh the negatives overall. A culmination of the various sounds Gideon has explored over the course of their career—from their more melodic beginnings to their aggressive, nu metal infused sound of the present day—MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. is a solid, fleshed-out body of work with plenty to offer for fans of the group both new and old.
8/10
MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. is out this Friday March 17th via Equal Vision Records and can be pre-ordered here.