For those who hold the mental image of faith music being overly happy with an unhealthy dollop of cheese, clearly have not heard of Impending Doom. Hailing from Riverside California, Impending Doom are not afraid to let you know that they are warriors for Christ. Armed with ‘The Sin and Doom Vol. II’, Impending doom make a ferocious return to the scene with their first release in five years. Marking the sixth release for the band, Impending Doom continue to carve a unique place for themselves within the metal landscape with their unusual blend that consists of a heavy dose of deathcore with a healthy helping of Christianity. With this said, I feel it’s important to state that the lyrical content does is no way distract from the brutality of the record. So, if you feel uncomfortable with God, you can still find enjoyment in the heavy that this album brings.
Opening the album with a scathing review of the hypocrisy of modern day life, ‘Wretched and Godless’ wastes no time in enveloping the listener in a dark and gloomy fog of brutality and aggression. Questioning how far the world has fallen from the ideal, vocalist Brook Reeves takes a hammer to society’s rose-tinted world view and attempts to open the eyes of the listener to the victims of personal greed. One thing that stands out to me on this record, apart from the Meshuggah style triplet bends, is the production value of the song. Continued through the record, in flicking from ‘Death Will Reign’ to this release, the improvement in sound quality and song writing is painfully clear.
Putting the bottom-heavy guitars to good use in the second track of the album, ‘Burn’ opens with a slow stompy groove before continuing the offensive with volleys of conflicting dissonance overlaid with visceral gutturals. Coming in at just over five minutes, ‘War Music’ is the longest song on the album by a good margin, yet Impending Doom use this time effectively, demonstrating that the five years it took to release this album were not put to waste. Importantly, this song is interesting for two reasons. The first is that it takes a slightly different path to its savagery. Instead of heading straight for the syncopated beatdown, ‘War Music’ instead drapes the listener in a dark eerie single note run before jump scaring you with a vicious onslaught of callous riffs. The second reason why this song is interesting is that it marks a slight change in the band’s sound. Demonstrating that the genre defining band are not themselves defined by the genre, songs like ‘War Music’, ‘Everything’s Fake’ and ‘Unbroken’ all feature riffs that sound almost djenty in their delivery. Whilst songs like ‘EVIL’ and ‘The Serpents Tongue’ all feature passages of defined tremolo picking, a core characteristic of death metal. For fans of the band, this change is blatant. Yet for the majority, this change is for the best.
Whilst I count myself among that number, there are a few things on the album that I can’t help but take issue with. One of the things that I feel doesn’t work to the benefit of the album is the sound of the snare. Don’t get the me wrong though, the drums on this album sound huge, Brandon Trahan does an amazing job. Yet in listening to the album I can’t help but feel disappointment. To me, an unfortunate combination of poor mixing decisions alongside a short tail on the snare hit mean that the mid breakdown snare jab fails to give you the punch in the face that you would expect. Instead, its feels as though the snare is trying stroke your face in a comforting manner. Whilst I acknowledge that there are many instances when this kind of behaviour is welcome, a brutal metal album that takes the fight to evil itself, is not one of them. With this said, the snares weakness is not too much of an issue as for the majority of the album the snare is able to hide behind the rest of the kit. However, when its alone and exposed, I can’t help but feel like something is missing.
Ultimately, while things like the snare and the arrangement of the songs don’t necessarily work to the benefit of the release, it cannot be stressed enough that the albums positives far outweigh the negatives. Returning to Christopher Eck to produce the release, ‘The Sin and Doom Vol. II’ is a crushing brutal record that is easily one of the most powerful albums that Impending Doom have released thus far. In adopting their modern sound and masterfully crafted staccato riffage, with this album Impending Doom simultaneously warn of the continuing ruination of societal standards whilst demonstrating to Satan himself, that evil has no power here.
A review by Matthew young.