Winter's "Into Darkness" is sludge metal

Winter's sole full-length 'Into Darkness' is generally tagged as Death Doom Metal but this week's revisit has seen me strongly questioning that position. Opening track “Oppression Freedom/Oppression (Reprise)” is probably the only genuine doom/death track on the album if you wanna get technical about it. The only other track that offers much in the way of that death metal feel (think Autopsy) is the closing title track but even then it’s kinda 50/50. The wonderful three-minute 'Power & Might' that sits right in the middle of the tracklisting represents one of the earliest examples of the funeral doom metal sound & is possibly even one of the best too but the rest of the album is made up of an abrasive brand of doom metal that, when combined with bassist John Alman’s growled vocals, seems to sit far more comfortably under a sludge metal tag than anything death metal related. There’s really not much death metal instrumentation included on 'Into Darkness' in all honesty & the links to Celtic Frost (see 'Servant of the Warsmen' in particular), crust punk gods Amebix & sludge metal acts like Crowbar seem like far more appropriate points of reference to me. Are the vocals death growls? I’d suggest they play in the space between sludge metal & death metal but when combined with this super down-tuned & filthy guitar tone they seem to possess a crusty hardcore edge more regularly than they do that grisly Chris Reifert-ish death metal tone. That’s right ladies & gentlemen. I’m suggesting that 'Into Darkness' isn’t actually a doom/death record. It’s predominantly a sludge metal one for mine so I'd like to see a Sludge Metal tag added on top of it's Doom Metal one. If successful then I may elect to have the Doom Metal tage removed at a later date too.

This nomination has been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

I remember giving this album some listening and a review last year, but I think of it as more of a sludgy death-doom album. Sure they have the Celtic Frost-inspired sound in "Servant of the Warsmen", but they remind of that Delirium album from the same year that I also reviewed in my death-doom rediscovery trip, much more than Amebix and Crowbar. Personally, the closest to sludge I can find in the album is the groove-like speed of "Destiny". However, every other song has mostly the slow tempo, death growls, and abrasive riffing that are all more deathly and doomy than sludgy to my ears. I can't vote in this nomination because I'm not in The Fallen, but if I was, I would've voted NO there. And I would've definitely also voted against the doom metal tag removal.

I would argue that there are no death metal riffs on "Into Darkness" which means that the only way it can be doom/death is if the vocals clearly bring it back into the death metal space. The vocals sit very much on the borderline between angry crust punk/sludge & death metal though so it's not conclusive enough for the album to be doom/death in my opinion. The instrumentation is a combination of mid-tempo Celtic Frost & hardcore inspired chug riffs & slow doom metal riffs, both presented with a seriously down-tuned, abrasive & oppressive tone. That's a pretty good description of a sludge metal record for mine as sludge is essentially a more abrasive & angry version of doom metal with hardcore influences.