Evanescence Plays "Black Metal" - "With Doom We Come" Review (0%)
Summoning has built quite a reputation on pumping out albums like this, going all the way back to their debut Lugburz in fact. The simple formula is getting simplistic speed metal (at best) or nu metal (usually) riffing, bombastically cheesy and terrible keyboards, a plastic sound drum machine, horrendously trite lyrics about love and Tolkien fantasy, and then a female vocalist. But wait! Summoning throws in a curve ball: A TRANSGENDER VOCALIST!!!
As all things in modern metal, this serves the dual purpose of being annoying and bringing down the overall power in the classification of "black metal". This dude - oops - s/h/it is no Dead, s/h/it is barely even a second rate Ihsahn clone, instead s/h/it is some sort of pop vocalist. He eagerly tries - in vain, of course - to imitate that rapper guy from Linkin Park or Evanescence's "Bring me to Life". Elsewhere, he attempts the very screamo Papa Roach delivery of half shouting, half crying. Pretty much everywhere, though, he sounds like a reject from American Idol. Then again, I'm sure that wacky English fucker Simon would love this album, so perhaps Summoning is doing the right thing. When I hear him/her/other "wimping" about elves and dwarfs as on the horrible track Silvertine - a portmanteau of "silvery" and "libertine"? - I can see my childhood memories of the Lord of the Rings universe instantly flooded/ruining with rainbow coloured lights. Ugh.
When s/h/it isn't rapping or wimping, the androgynous undetermined gender vocalist does the infamous "I want to be an opera singer but I have no talent" thing, and is actually competent at it. *snickers* No, his/her opera vocals suck too. They don't go anywhere, are most of the time way too shrill and weak and seem dreadfully out of place by the very fact that they are so heavily processed (like in pop). Still, it feels like something you've already heard a million times, on any number of other "symphonic emo metal" releases.
With Doom We Come is just the continuation of Old Mornings Dawn's screamo taken to the next logical extreme: full on nu metal, literally Machine Head with queer(er) vocals and video game synths.
Can this band stop insulting the entire black metal genre with every one of their releases? If they play screamo/nu metal, this should be advertised as such... and should likewise NOT be featured anywhere on Metalious which is allegedly, according to the admins, a "heavy metal" exclusive website.
Evanescence Plays "Black Metal"
Ok, the vocalist is an easy target. What of the rest of the band? It's not that the other musician - singular, they are only two which is "why" they use MIDI guitars and fake drums (not because they can't play their instrument, duh) - in Summoning are any good either.
There's a bit of the chugga-chugga guitar riffing you will recognize from the very worst juggalo deathcore bands ever, avoiding anything technical or original as if competent musicianship was a bloated, plague infested corpse. There are a few "melodies", but these 1) sound like shit from a Donkey Kong game 2) come from the synths over 0-0-0-0-0-0 chugging 3) are virtually absolutely identical to those on Dol Guldur, and they already sucked back then.
Then we move onto the drummer, who just follows weakly along, providing simplistic beats with... oh wait, never mind, there is no drummer. It's just a (particularly plastic sounding) MIDI drum machine. I've heard drum machines that sound like toy drums, but never as bad as on this album. The bassist is... likewise inexistent? And what's sad is that it would be about the best thing that this album would have going for it. By his mere absence, he doesn't fuck up as ridiculously as the other two clowns, keeping his dignity through this shit storm by refusing to exist.
None of the above elements - nu metal vocals, MIDI guitars or drum machine - drive the music. That (dis)honour goes to the keyboards, which are utterly horrific. It sounds like the keyboardist sat around trying to recreate dumbed down theme songs from various sci-fi TV shows like Star Trek and various old Nintendo type video games like Donkey Kong, Megaman, Metroid, Mario, Zelda and even, I believe, the first Pokémon or whatever the fuck else is out there.
I've got nothing against keyboards, even sci-fi ones, provided they are used correctly. Black metal is black metal because it relies on atmosphere, power and aggression that come mainly from aggressive riffing (absent on here) energetic drumming (not to be found either) or strong vocals (likewise on permanent leave).
One of these has to lead the music.
In the case of With Doom We Come, you have terrible and cheesy keyboards leading the way, and around which all the music appears to be written - the MIDI guitars just being there to add "texture" via chugga chugga diarrhea. This is bad. This is worse than the blind leading the blind, this is the nu metal band Summoning pretending to play "symphonic black metal" by throwing synth leads above their Limp Bizkit chugging.
Summoning makes Evanescence sound like Morbid Angel. Seriously. I should have known by the fact that one member was wearing robes - literally - on the back cover, and it wasn't the shemale.
I'm not homophobic, but when this album is playing, it definitely threatens my masculinity. I run in terror and then throw on Warkvlt's (overrated) debut album, to rapidly detox from the excess estrogen.
Serious question though. Does the transgender on the back (Protector) really need hormone therapy, or would listening to this nu metal abomination With Doom We Come have had the same effect on his secondary sex characteristics?
I still haven't heard Wolves in the Throne Room (conscious choice), but this is some of the worst faux black metal screamo/post rock/nu metal I've ever heard, and that does include Deafheaven, Liturgy and the like. Summoning are light years behind even the shittiest DSBM bedroom band. I'm not even joking, even noise is better than this. I would rather listen to Pure Fucking Armageddon and Divine Necromancy at full volume, and at the same time, than ever touch this shitty excuse for nu metal again.
With Doom We Come score: 0/100.
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