Feature: Impending Doom Albums Ranked From Worst to First
When it comes to Christian deathcore, one band rises to the top: Impending Doom. California’s deathcore veterans have been around since the earliest days of the genre’s explosion into popularity. Releasing one of the most extreme deathcore demos ever, the cult-level record entitled The Sin and Doom of Godless Men, Impending Doom rose to the upper echelons of the deathcore movement, even in spite of openly wearing their faith in Christ on their sleeves. However, one will be hard pressed to hear mention of them in the metal mainstream alongside genre staples like Whitechapel, Suicide Silence or Thy Art is Murder; no doubt, this is the standard gatekeeping ridiculousness I’ve come to expect whenever a band is open about their Christian faith, even in spite of the fact that Impending Doom are held in high-regard by many in the deathcore scene. Be that as it may, for a guy like me who isn’t a major deathcore devotee, Impending Doom proved to be one of the most influential Christian bands on me personally. Their refusal to hide their faith in order to sell more records or not be pigeonholed is praiseworthy in my view; for myself, I prefer a band either be Christian or not at all rather than “faith-adjacent” or half-apologetic about being Christians, and Impending Doom couldn’t be more open about their faith in Christ. That inspires me a lot, because it sets the band up for an uphill struggle in the metal world, where they could and often do face being shunned, dismissed, or outright antagonized for their worldview. I get the feeling that Impending Doom couldn’t care less what people think of them and their faith, outside of their mission to bring the hope of Christ to those who would never normally entertain such a thing in the first place. Brook and company, if you’re reading this, thank you for inspiring me so much along the way.
Anyway – let’s get down to it, and rank Impending Doom’s studio albums from worst…to first.
There Will Be Violence
Even if Serpent Servant signalled a change in direction for the band in terms of adopting a more palatable sound (relatively speaking of course), There Will Be Violence felt just a little too close to the nu-metal sounds of Slipknot for my liking. Though I do love the song “Sweating Blood” for its rousing tone, I just find that There Will Be Violence lacks the overall intensity of their other releases. Not bad, just not my favourite.
The Sin and Doom Vol. II
Impending Doom’s latest full-length album before releasing a string of EP’s in the 2020’s, I found myself pretty hyped about this one. Referencing the band’s ridiculously rank demo The Sin and Doom of Godless Men, I felt like maybe the band was going back to their old sound. Did they? Not quite; in fact, not even close. Be that as it may, The Sin and Doom Vol. 2 was still a fairly powerful release, even if it didn’t sound anything like the demo it referenced. Though I think the band’s call-out of satanic black metal band’s theatrics with the song “The Serpent’s Tongue” takes some major guts, I can’t help but think the lyrics are a little cringey. However, I have to say that “Paved With Bones” was a total highlight for me, a raging number with a ludicrously headbangable groove to it that remains one of my favourite Impending Doom tracks. Think of this one as a combination of Baptized in Filth’s sense of dynamic with Death Will Reign’s brutality, but lacking the elements that made those albums fan favourites.
Death Will Reign
Despite the fact that 2018 was kind of being marketed as the band’s return to their old sound to a degree, Death Will Reign is arguably the band’s heaviest post-NDR release. That’s not to say it’s like that album sound-wise, but it’s emphasis on an impenetrably thick-sounding production and a doomish, slowed-down pace combined with the ferocious roars of Brook Reeves made for an exceedingly dark record. Its combination of darkly ambient passages and background audial canvases make it a unique album amongst the band’s repertoire.
The Serpent Servant
After Impending Doom’s Nailed. Dead. Risen., I feel like there really was nowhere else to go in terms of extremity; either the band had to release another album equally as intense and in the same style as their debut, or dial it back a bit and do something different. Obviously, if you’ve heard this record, you’ll know that Impending Doom chose the latter route. That’s not to say that this one isn’t one of their better releases in their catalogue, but Brook Reeves’ inhuman gutturals are mostly replaced by Whitechapel-style roars, and I can’t help but feel like this album is the sound of a band restraining themselves somewhat. That said, after Nailed. Dead. Risen. almost anything sounds approachable. No, it doesn’t make mincemeat out of the listener like NDR did, but the riffs still sound ominous and the drums fire at top-speed often. A solid release that would indicate the direction the band would take from that point on.
Baptized in Filth
By the time this one was released, it was clear that Impending Doom had definitively left their brutal death/grind influences behind. Though Serpent Servant was a solid record, There Will Be Violence toned it all down a bit too much for me. With Baptized in Filth, the band managed to find their footing again and released one of the best albums of their career. Beginning with the deathcore anthem “Murderer,” Baptized in Filth kept things super heavy while maintaining a more dynamic approach that kept it all fresh. Where albums like Nailed. Dead. Risen. and Death Will Reign succeeded with heaviness, Baptized in Filth succeeds by virtue of its sense of dynamics. Though I prefer Impending Doom at their heaviest, “My Light Unseen” saw the band exhibit a softer side that I never thought I’d like so much.
Nailed. Dead. Risen.
There once was a time when deathcore was a fresh, if somewhat controversial, new sound. While bands like Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, Despised Icon and Thy Art is Murder became leaders of the genre, it was Impending Doom that released a record that remains arguably the most extreme-sounding the movement’s history. This album was Nailed. Dead. Risen. Decked out at the time in Cannibal Corpse and Circle of Dead Children shirts, the young band seemed intent on proving to their secular metal counterparts that they could be every bit as brutal as they were. Thing is, on this album, Impending Doom ended up taking deathcore to such heights of extremity and depths of low-end brutality that the bar was set impossibly high. Brook Reeves sounds downright terrifying on here, veering from impossibly low gutturals to roars to pig squeals all in one song. And if you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be slammed into concrete by a rabid gorilla over and over, the breakdowns on here will give you a pretty good idea. It all ends with a terrifying interpretative vision of the Second Coming/Last Judgement, seemingly from the perspective of the goats rather than the sheep. Few albums reach the level of intensity that this one does (only Human Harvest by Circle of Dead Children comes to mind, really), and the band would sadly largely abandon the overt death/grind influences on this album on subsequent releases But as it is, Nailed. Dead. Risen. remains, in my opinion, the best deathcore record I have ever heard, and a towering icon of the genre. If you only own one deathcore record, let it be this one. Absolutely 100% mandatory listening.
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