Impending Doom (USA) - Baptized in Filth (2012)Release ID: 16323
Deathcore played a minor role in my formative years. Even though I never turned out to be a huge fan of it, I know plenty of people who were in the same metalcore circles as me who were able to use this new found trend as an excuse to get on board with the unfiltered, heavy as fuck world of technical death metal. As they moved in one direction, I found myself getting more into Djent with bands like After the Burial and later Periphery.
What I never understood from this new crop of bands was how disjointed it all felt. Even more so than it's two original influences. Something about the blistering fast tempos, preceded by a whiplash tempo change to a disgusting breakdown never flowed with me. Which leads up to Impending Doom, a band who were left behind by the metalcore community, even if I will admit, their earlier discography is probably the most consistent in the subgenre. Their fourth album, Baptized In Filth continues in the same trend as those first two albums with a heavier focus on melody. Well maybe that's an overstatement; it's still deathcore with a heavy emphasis on breakdown and atomic drops, but "Murderer" and "Deceiver" have strong shout choruses to go along with the groovy as hell breakdowns that anchor it all together. The final track "Death. Ascension. Resurrection" may as well be a melodic metalcore song!
Impending Doom also have the ability to bring songs down in tempo for those breakdowns with conviction rather than resorting to whiplash. "Chaos: Reborn" is a good example of how breakdowns can be implemented as part of a whole, making it much more effective. It also allows for the track to retain its identity, an issue seldom addressed in tech death or metalcore!
With all of that said, the record is quite basic in construction. I mean, I was never going to fall head over heels for this purest form of deathcore; atomic drops that disjoint the mix in preposterous ways, same-y vocal delivery for every track that never deviates, formulaic instrumentals, and breakdowns that rely more on odd guitar techniques (pinch harmonics, scrapes, etc.) than any motif or idea. But once again, I am approaching this from a very different place than those who actively listened to deathcore during the late 2000s.
As it is, if I was ever looking for a brand of melodic deathcore that didn't require me to throw on my pretentious pants and just wanted to enjoy some simple, arguably stupid, moshing fun, Impending Doom is a good place to go. When metalcore got more dank, they added the one thing from tech-death that I never wanted in my metalcore music: musical nothingness. Baptized In Filth is not going to impress anyone who knows this sound, but at least it's memorable.
I think it's fair to say that deathcore has got a really bad reputation in underground metal circles. It's notorious for being unintelligent, unsophisticated & frustratingly generic & those traits are admittedly not hard to find if you only look on the surface however I'm going to stand up & make a bold statement here today... I'm a fan of high quality deathcore & I'm not afraid to admit it. In fact, I think it's reputation is both overthetop & a bit unfair because if you look a little deeper you'll find that there's a side to the subgenre that offers plenty of appeal to the average extreme metal fan with California's Impending Doom sitting firmly in that space. I first discovered them back in 2012 when this fourth album came to my attention & it made such an impression on me that I found myself traveling back to explore the rest of Impending Doom's back catalogue. Their 2005 debut E.P. "The Sin & Doom of Godless Men" didn't offer much but all of their subsequent work is worth checking out if you like the idea of well-executed & professionally produced precision violence. "Baptized In Filth" remained their most impressive work however & I've thoroughly enjoyed this revisit a decade later.
Can Impending Doom be labelled as being generic? Well, you'll certainly hear most of the traits that the deathcore subgenre has made it's calling cards (breakdowns, single note riffs, gravity drops, etc.) but the sheer vitriol that the band are able to produce allows them to stand over the try-hards & push their faces forcefully into the turf. This is an unapologetically metal-as-fuck release right here & the band clearly don't give two shits about whether you like it or not. The death metal component is a little more significant than many other deathcore bands can claim with the regular use of blast beats & a bunch of angular riffs that remind me of Cannibal Corpse seeing my ears prick up. These guys certainly don't shy away from the more rhythmic & djenty riff structure that deathcore is known for either but thankfully their sound & execution are super-tight & ridiculously heavy which should be enough to draw in any self-respecting metal fan. But it's the brutal vocals of Brook Reeves that are the real highlight for me personally. He sounds positively scary & unhinged here, kinda like what I imagine Phil Anselmo might sound like if you stole his last bag of heroin. Just sheer, undiluted violence & aggression from start to finish so you'd honestly never guess that these guys are a Christian band if you didn't read it in the press. Yes, that's right. Just like 7 Horns 7 Eyes who claimed this month's The Horde feature release, Impending Doom are another bunch of Christians who enjoy the exhilaration of the most brutal metal they can muster & good luck to them I say. I honestly couldn't give a fuck what they do before going to bed at night when they can produce metal of this quality but I'd dare say it's cost them some of their credibility with the more narrow-minded & elitist punters out there.
"Baptized In Filth" isn't a perfect album by any means. It's certainly top heavy with the first four tracks being the best of the ten on offer & the cleaned-sung & more melodic second last track "My Light Unseen" standing out like a sore thumb in a tracklisting that's otherwise completely focused on brutality (is it just me of does Reeves sound a fair bit like a better version of Nickelback's Chad Kroeger on that track?). The quality never dips below a really solid base level though & the three track run from "For the Wicked" to "Deceiver" sits amongst the strongest I've heard from the deathcore subgenre. I can honestly say that I get really pumped up by this music & feel like it's the perfect way to get my aggression out. It's also worth noting that "Baptized In Filth" was one of a number of records that contributed to me wanting to work on this website with Ben in the first place. It's always frustrated me that certain genres of music unanimously seem to receive such poor ratings on RYM regardless of the merit of the release as a representation of the sound (for the record "Baptized In Filth" is currently sitting at a pathetic 3.08 from 150 ratings after a full ten years since release) & the fact that Metal Archives don't even consider this record to be metal enough for inclusion on their site but are happy for Rush & Scorpions to take part is mind-boggling. This made me want to help create an environment where fans of all types of metal can identify the best releases for their personal preferences &, low & behold, that's what we've done, isn't it? Anyway... I strongly urge any death metal fans out there who think they don't like deathcore to give "Baptized In Filth" a few spins. You may be surprised at the outcome.
