Another Doghouse band that has the utmost devotion to their sound, ensuring that Four to Go will be the most crisply recorded, that there will be no dropped guitar lines, and that Guy’s bass line continue to assault you throughout the recording. Walking the thin line between power-rock and pop-punk, Gameface follows the path set out by Audio Adrenaline, Nada Surf, and DC Talk in creating an album that will appeal to masses of individuals. Intensely emotional lyrics lie like a trap in each song; snaring any individual who is lucky enough to actually devote time to actually listening to the disc. Gameface is not an act that is just trying to take the world by storm; through their twelve years of existence, they’ve released five full-length albums and many other 7-inches and have had to work for their fanbase. As a result, the fusion that is so prevalent in modern Christian rock due to different approaches by the aforementioned artists (such as Audio Adrenaline and DC Talk) is used to the same degree of success by Gameface. Besides the obvious religious differences between those bands and Gameface, there is really not much difference aurally to these two acts. Soul-seeking lyrics that typically cover similar topics (such as Gameface’s focus on lost-love) mesh with divinely-guided bass lines, guitar riffs, and drum beats to provide the most pleasant music possible. “The Word” seems to be the stand-out track on a disc full of instant classics; the chorus : “It’s just a word, it’s a word we say too much, and it’s almost lost its meaning, it’s a blanket for the world, so why is everybody freezing?” just is too catchy, too awe-inspiring, too much of this world to be lost in the mists of time. For the time that they have working, Gameface has made the definitive album for the period 1991-2003, and any listener who wants to get a gist of what the highlights of the era entailed should pick up their own copy of “Four to Go”. By the time the listener gets to the last section of the CD, some things become obvious, most importantly that the entire basis of the Blink 182-style slowdown before the drum-kicks during their slower-tempoed songs is a direct take-off of a Gameshow technique, most properly shown in “How Far is Goodbye?”.
Top track : Give Me Something Real
Rating : 7.9/10
Gameface – Four to Go / 2003 Doghouse Records / 12 Songs / Reviewed : 07.06.2003 / Release Date : 08.12.2003 / http://www.doghouserecords.com / http://www.gameface.net