Review by Xephyr for Mick Gordon - DOOM (Original Game Soundtrack) (2016)

Rips (But Does Not Tear)

Videogame Original Sound Tracks (OST's) have always been a sticking point for me for multiple reasons, the paramount one being OST's are meant to be experienced alongside the act of playing the game that it accompanies. When you create music or sounds for a game it can't overpower what your character or the enemies are doing, since that would lead to confusing and frustrating gameplay. Trying to rate and talk about one of the most revered and ripping modern OST's feels incomplete without controlling the Doom Slayer himself, but despite being two hours long Mick Gordon's collection of 31 tracks with a few excerpts from codec entries holds up rather well by itself. Just to be clear, the 4.5 out of 5 rating refers to this OST as part of the DOOM 2016 package, which is no doubt phenomenal, but this review will look at the music as if the game never existed, which is a tough sell but it's something I wanted to try.

At it's core the DOOM OST has two different styles, a Djent-y heavy metal style and a dark industrial electronic style. Fitting, since DOOM definitely only has two speeds, maiming demons or walking to the next area where you're maiming demons. The Djent-Industrial Metal is heavy and well done, with the chugging rhythms taking the spotlight rather than notes or melodies. "Rip & Tear", "BFG Division", and "SkullHacker" pound into your head with the brutal aggressiveness that DOOM is known for with down-tuned guitar, blasting bass drum, and white noise cymbals. The cymbal sound effects are especially interesting because the the constant white noise during the chug riffs make the silence in-between other riffs way more impactful, giving certain sections that weighted heaviness that DOOM requires. The syncopation of the riffs is also an extremely important concept that Gordon is able to nail, with the second half of "Rust, Dust and Guts" exemplifying this. The album as a whole is obviously very loud and in your face, but does a great job of volume control and is mixed very well so that everything is audible even in the loudest of sections in "BFG Division" and "Mastermind". Since a lot of the sounds are heavily doctored by Gordon in post the drums and guitar have the exact amount of impact they need, with the drums especially having just the right amount of echo and sustain to keep the chug riffs driving. The atmospheric sections are a blend of story-driven monologues behind sweeping synths or long, drawn out orchestral sections. These atmospheric sections serve as the calm before the storm and are surprisingly varied in their use of unique sound effects to keep it somewhat interesting. Most of the time, though, these tracks serve as a waiting room until the next heavy, riff based track hits.

In terms of video game OST's DOOM is easily one of the most cohesive and tailored to the experience that DOOM provides, but as a 2 hour album experience it's just too much. After multiple listens many of the tracks are throwaways, especially the more atmospheric ones. "Rip & Tear" serves as the first and best looks at the industrial heaviness of DOOM, but it does such a good job of cramming everything the rest of the album is going to do into one 4 minute track that everything proceeding it sounds a bit redundant. For the heavy tracks; "Rip & Tear", "BFG Division", "Cyberdemon", "Skullhacker", and "Mastermind" will give you everything you could want out of this album, with the rest being quite redundant or drawn out. "Hellwalker", "Transistor Fist", "Vega Core", and "Flesh & Metal" don't hold up comparatively with their more electronic-focused and less groove-based riffs. Between these highlights are the atmospheric sections, which get really old really fast considering there are so many of them. Even though I knew that DOOM takes place on Mars and in Hell and is all about fighting off the demon horde, I can't say I ever got "Hell" or "Demons" from the feel of all these atmospheric tracks. Most of the time I was thinking "Space" or "Extraterrestrial", which is absolutely part of the game but not necessarily what DOOM's focus is, which is ripping demons in half. The monologues of "Dogma", "Demigod", "Dakhma", and "Doom" help to reorient the mental picture a bit and are great uses of the game's lore to provide some background as to what the OST is trying to portray, but they are few and far between on this 2 hour excursion. I would have preferred either a few more of them or the existing ones to be chopped up into smaller sections so they could pop up more often throughout the album to help keep the listener engaged and help to tell the story.

Overall, Mick Gordon's DOOM OST is just filled with too much DOOM. While viciously aggressive and industrially heavy it turns out to be too much of a good thing, with certain tracks feeling redundant and dragging on for too long with repetitive ideas. Each slow buildup into another chugging, almost one-note riff feels the same, each slow atmospheric calm feels the same, and after becoming familiar with all 2 hours of the OST there are so many tracks that just aren't needed. Even the closer, "Mastermind", is kind of outclassed by "Rip & Tear" and "SkullHacker" with its use of actual game sounds of the assault rifle. Not the best way to end an album of this length if one of the first songs is better than the very last one. If this OST had released with a few less atmospheric songs, maybe shortened some of the longer more repetitive tracks, and had taken out some of the less necessary portions, it maybe would have been a bit more bearable at a 1 hour length. As I said before, the 4.5 out of 5 is for DOOM being one of the most complete and immersive OST's that really feels tailored exactly to the game's experience. But as a standalone product it's extremely redundant and long-winded, and the two well executed styles of dark atmospheric electronic and industrial metal start to lose a bit of their sheen after the hour mark of this demon murdering symphony.