BANDS WHO USED TO BE GOOD: IMPENDING DOOM

For those who aren’t familiar, Impending Doom is a Christian deathcore band from the mean streets of Riverside (side note: why are 90% of deathcore bands from the Inland Empire??). From their BMTH-style logo to JFAC-clone riffs, nobody ever accused them of being original, but I always thought they were pretty damn good at what they did. Their first two albums, hilariously self-righteous, bible-thumping lyrics and all, were about as good as the genre gets, and I jammed them on the regular when I was fiending for some deathcore.

As a longtime fan, I excitedly pirated their new album this morning, eager to hear what new ways these 909 bros would mosh 4 christ. Sadly, much like Decrepit Birth, Impending Doom apparently got bit by the Gothenburg bug, and turned into yet another dull, cookie-cutter melodeath-inspired band.

Vintage Impending Doom, back when their Myspace had a hilarious “sounds like” section that said something like “guttural hammer-on, pull-off, slamming brutality FOR CHRIST!” This song is tight, and still sounds better than 99% of their peers.

One of the least interesting songs off their new album– zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Yet another band ruined by melodeath — it would be tragic if it wasn’t such a bummer. If you ask me, we should lock up all Killswitch, In Flames, Shadows Fall, and Carcass albums/MP3s and keep them behind the counter like guns, porn, and spray paint. Musicians simply can’t be trusted with melodeath until they’ve shown the ability to listen to it responsibility, and we can’t sit by idly as one band after the next falls under the spell of it’s boring, generic siren song!

MISS U IMPENDING DOOM — H8 U AT THE GATES

-Sergeant D.