IMPENDING DOOM

 

Impending Doom is an American Christian deathcore band from Riverside, California. The group has released six full-length studio albums. The band refers to their style of music as "Gorship", which is described by Reeves as "Worshiping God through our gore-sounding music".

I have heard Impending Doom like a song here n there in the past. But I think it´s a fair assessment that the majority of their discography comes as a first time experience with this review. Although while writing this I´ve listened through the albums several times in order get a good and valid impression.

Starting off with their latest ones. “The Sin and Doom Vol II” “Death Will Reign” The production comes off as nothing jaw dropping, a pretty generic death/metalcore sound on the production. It´s good but feels like a template used on so many albums in that genre.

I don´t know what it is but I´m sort of liking it but at the same time not that much. I think that the low tuning makes the whole production loose aggressiveness and punch. As someone who have used 8 strings for many years my experience is that you get low guttural sounding tones but at the same time it gets a bit flubby and undefined if not done the right way. Especially the very low tuned “Death Will Reign” which sounds like it´s perhaps Drop E. Yes it´s low but feels more counterproductive, works on single string riffing.  To me personally it would´ve sounded way more aggressive if the tuning were a bit higher. This together with the overtly traditional metalcore guitar sound there´s just something that doesn’t click for me. I mean it sounds great but at the same time a bit bland and boring. This goes for the whole productions. One of the biggest turn offs is that the low guttural lead vocal, sounds like it´s stacked almost all the time, which I´m not a fan of. Using dubs, is really effective but not if it´s on the whole time, then it loses its effect. Becomes tiresome quite quickly. These two albums have its fair share of great moments but as a whole, not super pumped. 

Now “Baptized in Filth” released in 2012 is where it changes for me, although the production isn´t super hot. But this is the best album in my opinion. The tuning is a bit higher at least on some songs and overall better riffing in my opinion. A good balance between breakdowns and metal riffing. The overall feeling is more interesting. Also, not to forget the vocals are way better than on the two newer ones. He varies his voice more which I enjoy. His midrange and high pitch sound are really good and can´t understand why it´s not used on the newest albums. This album has several good moments but my favorite after several spins out of all their albums has to be “Chaos: Reborn” The verse riff is absolute gold and reminds me of Meshuggah at times. Wish the guitar sound was a bit tighter and not so purry, tube screamer combo. An odd song is “My Light Unseen” feat “Ryan Clark”. In a different set up a pretty good song, but feels misplaced and too different. But this album stood out after a constant breakdown fest and chuggy rhythms on the new albums which I can appreciate but in moderation.

“There will be violence” has its great moments but the mix is off putting. Take the title track and the opening snare fill is just so bad as if taken out of a rave techno snare build up. Triggers could be used better in 2010 but not on this album. A good song otherwise but sometimes it´s difficult to get pass ugly details. The snare is horrible. The albums have some cool passages one favorite being the chorus in “Peace Illusion” very Meshuggah like usage of harmonies. Awesome stuff. “Great Fear” kicks off with great blast beat riffing, that snare though. Such a shame. Yet an awkward thing all of a sudden with “Love has risen” The happy vibe feel, feels just misplaced among the other stuff. Could write that off as a personal preference. A boring filler in my book. Despite some great parts here and there the album is just not pulling me in.

"The Serpent Servant" (2009) shows more and more where they came from with the grinding parts in “The Serpent Servant” The whole album is more about trad death riffing. Has some cool death riffing in “Anything Goes” to mention a few places. The vocals feel a bit muddy and buried in the mix. Drums sounds way more natural on this compared to “There Will Be Violence”. Although this album has more of trad death vibe going on, the deathcore with breakdowns is present across their discography.

“Nailed Dead Risen” is their debut found on Spotify last album I checked and I´m glad it was the last. Had I begun with this I would not have been impressed. I will admit right from the bat, this is not my cup of tea, and I´m not the correct guy to even judge this. I love death vocals but pig squeals, inhaled vox or whatever is just not my area of knowledge. Personally, I find it completely useless and serves zero purpose. I can´t hear anything said, could be nonsense and no real lyrics. I´m just having issues wrapping my head around the thought process. Yeah, we have these awesome straight forward lyrics, but no one can hear a word. This is the same phenomenon many have with harsh vocals to begin with. They can´t distinguish any lyrics and it just doesn’t work for them. Well, I can distinguish the lyrics for the most part but here goes the line for me apparently, haha. Combined with poor production and then on top of that vocals that makes zero sense for me. Nope I can´t judge this properly. Might be a good album according to many out there but I´ll just skip this one.

So, my overall impression of Impending Doom.

One of my issues is their guitar sound across their albums. It´s just the wrong type of guitar sound in my opinion. It´s too purry and undefined and fine if you choose that direction but it´s a bad version of that type of thing. To best describe the vibe is a Mesa Boogie Rectifier without a boost of some sort to tighten up the low-end. It becomes very flubby and feels tired. That is heard across all their albums to some degree. I´m constantly changing the guitar sound in my head. Tightness in the low-end is key when tuned low otherwise this is the result. Which makes it a bit tiresome to listen to.  I think I might´ve enjoyed their stuff more if two things were better. Tighter and more aggressive guitar sound and better or should I say more original mixes. The mixes are decent, not bad in any way, but at the same time nothing really hits me in the face like, maaan I love these sounds. I would say that this might even be a band that works better live than on album, especially the later stuff. A lot of break downs and chuggy rhythms works great live. On album this doesn’t excite me enough more than some awesome moments here and there. One thing I might recognize as why this isn´t making me jump in my boots is that I might´ve wanted a bit more technical advanced rhythms, odd time feel in the pulse or polyrhythms as it´s often called.

Impending Doom should definitely tickle your ears if you´re into deathcore. Despite my lack of knowledge on the genre or whatever, I do think they deserve a spot in the spotlight for their music and bold lyrics. 

A post on their Twitter account from March 2021 indicates there´s a new EP coming up and that it would me mixed by Will Putney who is a top name in the industry. So that is a production I´m eager to hear.