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It's never fun for a band to have to follow up a nearly perfect debut, especially when almost nobody is around to notice. God Forsaken had the balls to do something different from the norm with Dismal Gleams of Desolation, which took the Finnish Death Metal style and pushed it through a filter of groovy, Sabbathine Doom to make a novel sound that was unjustly buried under the weight of their own scene. They tried again three years later with their follow-up, The Tide Has Turned, which doubled down on the old-school Doom while sacrificing a bit of heaviness and mood in the process. I wish I could say that it's another overlooked gem like their debut, but sadly, I can see why this one didn't help them catch on the first time around.

Album opener "November/Forsaking the World" is a pretty solid demonstration of both the strengths and weaknesses of this album. The opening is more akin to Dio-era Sabbath than Ozzy, but that's fine because it's filled with energy and swagger to spare. I wish I could say they kept up the energy, but the rest of the song sounds like a second-rate Cathedral track left on the cutting room floor, too upbeat to work as Doom and not energetic enough to make that shift in style work out. A lot of the album is like this, with songs that have some solid riffs but never do much with them or develop the song enough to justify how long they go for, even though most of them are pretty short. There are still some good songs on here, like the moody instrumental "Jupiter" and the rocking "Giving it All Away", but most of the album kind of blends together with mediocre songwritng and a lack of the atmosphere that made the debut stand out.

I dunno, on the one hand, this feels like the logical next step for the band, but on the other it feels like a serious misstep. I really wanted to like this album when I first listened to it, but in an attempt to lean on the more recognizable aspect of their sound and appeal to everyone, they scrubbed out the other elements that made them great and ended up appealing to no one, and I just find it less interesting the more I listen to it. Maybe they'll learn from past mistakes on their upcoming material, but for now, you're better off sticking with Dismal Gleams of Desolation instead.