“It’s not a supergroup!” is the “it’s not a tumor!” of the rock world—a denial delivered instinctively and vociferously whenever preeminent players band together. In the case of Gone Is Gone, you have members of three of this millennium’s most significant crossover bands in the realm of metal, hard rock and post-hardcore: bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders of Mastodon, guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age, and drummer Tony Hajjar of the recently reactivated At the Drive-In. Perhaps they’re not the most marquee members of their respective units, but in terms of collective experience and strength, they’ve certainly earned the right to wear capes.
But in advance interviews, Gone Is Gone predictably downplay any such self-aggrandizing descriptors—for them, this group is simply an opportunity for some old pals to finally make music together free of deadline pressure and promo-cycle demands. Gone Is Gone is the long-gestating byproduct of Hajjar’s day job composing video-game and movie-trailer themes with keyboardist/guitarist Mike Zarin. (Perhaps you’ve blown up a city in Splinter Cell: Blacklist to one of their dystopian synthscapes.) When the duo invited Van Leeuwen to embellish some pieces they had been working on, they saw the potential to turn the project into a proper band. But while Sanders was actually the last piece of the puzzle to be placed, his imposing presence sets the angst-ridden tone for the band’s debut mini-LP.
In Mastodon, Sanders is one of three vocalists fighting for space, and on that band’s most recent records, he’s been winning. So while Gone Is Gone’s soundtrack origins may lend it a different, more atmospheric feel than a Mastodon record, it’s a logical extension of the accessible, artfully rendered alt-metal Sanders’ main band has been inching toward in recent years. Essentially, Gone Is Gone’s relationship to Mastodon is akin to that of A Perfect Circle to Tool, or Audioslave to Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. In other words, it’s easy enough to identify the pedigree involved, but everything is more meticulous and controlled—and, ultimately, too willing to play by the modern-rock radio playbook.
Sanders, naturally, doesn’t scream with the same guttural intensity he did 15 years ago, but his vocal cords nonetheless bear the battle scars of someone who has been screaming for 15 years. And while the opening “Violescent” shows he’s still most at home growling atop plutonium-grade riffage, his voice is made more pliable through Van Leeuwen’s mercurial, Cure-like guitar ripples and destabilizing solos (like the shortwave-frequencied fretwork that drives the song to its earthquaking climax). But without a Brent Hinds to out-shout, or a more tuneful foil like Brann Dailor to gild the melodies, Sanders’ voice strains as he tries to push pained power ballads like “Starlight” and “This Chapter” into the stratosphere. The songs only achieve true lift-off when Sanders frees himself of that burden and the band flex their instrumental muscle on the crescendoing codas.
Gone Is Gone boasts other such jolts of exhilaration—like the industrialized throb of “Praying From the Danger” or the berserker mid-section of “One Divided.” But that’s ultimately all they are: fleeting, pulse-boosting moments that inevitably recede into the album’s morose, monochromatic mood. The attention to texture and narrative devices (in the form of two ambient, spoken-word interludes) suggests the principals have designs to make GIG more than just another gig. But while they’ve successfully siphoned the musical and conceptual heft of their source bands, they’ve forsaken their mastery of momentum. In lieu of Mastodon’s restless, village-pillaging gallop, QOTSA’s motorik charge, or At the Drive-In’s convulsive energy, the songs here mostly chug along in a mid-tempo, dubwise gait that keeps the chaos contained even as the levels shoot into the red. For all the champion horsepower in their stable, Gone Is Gone just never really gets going.
