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Album Reviews : Good Tiger – We Will All Be Gone

By Rod Whitfield on February 18, 2018

When a band releases a debut that becomes an instant classic, the sophomore effort also instantly becomes an issue. How do you follow up something that was just about the best representation of what a band can do? With great difficulty, and this has been proven throughout the years.

This American melodic progressive rock/metal act have made a decent fist of it. Their debut of 2015, Head Full of Moonlight, was a sublime slice of indefinable and unclassifiable melodic heavy music, and displayed a band that had hit the peak of their powers on day dot. And in a way, so it should, this being a ‘supergroup’ of sorts, featuring former members of such luminaries of progressive heavy music as Tesseract, The Faceless and The Safety Fire (that said, more often than not, ‘supergroups’ don’t end up measuring up to the sum of their parts).

The follow-up doesn’t quite match the debut’s magic, but suffers only by comparison to its predecessor. Viewed in isolation, it’s a work of wizardry, choc-full of quirky but riveting tunes that stay with you for long moments after the final strains of moody, breathy closer I’ll Finish this Book Later have faded away.

Slinky opener The Devil Thinks I’m Sinking grasps the attention of the listener from the very first note, and this record does not let go until the end. The grooves and melodies that this band has created on We Will All Be Gone are just so compelling, there is nary a weak spot to be heard anywhere on this record.

The band could not have selected a better production team to bring out the best in this record. They recruited Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood (Periphery, Animals as Leaders) and Australia’s own production prodigy Forrester Savell, who has worked with all manner of Aussie and international progressive music greats. As a result, the record positively shines.

My only real beef is at, at just 36 minutes, it is over way too quickly and leaves you breathless for more. This can, of course, help raise anticipation for what comes next…

This album will feature in many people’s top 10s at the end of the year, no question. We Will All be Gone is a winner.

Band: Good Tiger
Album: We Will All be Gone
Year: 2018
Genre: Progressive Rock/Metal
Label: Blacklight Media/Metal Blade Records
Origin: USA

About Rod Whitfield

Rod Whitfield is a Melbourne-based writer and retired musician who has been writing about music since 1995. He has worked for Team Rock, Beat Magazine, themusic.com.au, Heavy Mag, Mixdown, The Metal Forge, Metal Obsession and many others. He has written and published his memoirs of his life and times in the music biz, and also writes books, screenplays, short stories, blogs and more.