Hailing from where I grew up, Long Island New York’s Day of Doom have been around for a pretty decent time, since 2000.  They have released four albums.  Night of Horror, Slaves to Insanity, The Gates of Hell and their newest one Descent of Humanity.  They also reissued their first 2 albums on The Second Coming.  Longtime friend and Internal Bleeding supporter Bill “The Nose Chopper” Eckhoff hooked me up with the Day of Doom contacts because he is their booking agent and knows how much I love brutal death metal.  Thanks Bill.  So the drummer Rich and I have been in contact and he’s a great dude.

The band plays no frills brutal death metal which is cemented in 90’s era death metal.  Doug Randazzo on guitar, vocals, Sam Lara on bass and vocals and Rich Hervey on drums, keyboards and vocals.  It’s good to have the entire band chip in with vocals to keep shit interesting.  This is the first release for this particular record label.  The digital edition contains some instrumentals which are not on this cd release.  What better way to open an album then go right into the title track.  I love the bass guitar in the beginning.  Right when you think the song is going to be slow they rip into a blast and then right into a slow punishing groove.  Rich throws in some well-timed double bass and this slow part with the vocals, solo almost had an ancient Obituary tone to it.  It’s really catchy.  Then Rich throws in a little cymbal smashing and the quick stop start double bass will reverberate through your speakers so loud it will collapse your chest cavity.  “Enslavement Sorcery” has multiple vocals chiming in all at once and the classic death metal beat has a real early Suffocation influence, kinda like something from the Human Waste ep.  The slow parts with the double bass blasting away are awesome.  “Watching the World Burn” with the guitar slide at the minute part slow-down is so kick-ass.  You gotta hear it.  It repeats and then boom right into a nifty little bass guitar part. The guitar slide occurs again later on.  This is one of the strongest songs Day of Doom has ever written.

Day of Doom really tries something new with the 21 minute epic song “The Beguiled Ones”.  The song opens with an eerie intro and the song goes from blasting to doomier parts.  I really like the 8 minute parts.  Guitar solos and some clear gruff vocals all the while the double bass is demolishing you and some nice drum roles.  Then into a very cool section at the 9 minute part.  Great guitar riff.  The riff is a beat down riff.  I just wanted to pick up light poles and begin tossing them across parking lots and towns.  Prior to doing that I would engrave the cool ass Day of Doom logo, all over the light poles, so as to spread the band name to as many people as humanely possible.  The 13 minute sections have some cool guitar solos, sounding like it’s under water, and killer bass guitar moments.  The tune meanders to a doom build-up closing.  Yeah if you have the doom name as part of your band name you might as well use doom in your metal, that’s what I always say.  The band will never play this song in its entirety, but definitely sectioning off parts will work in a live setting.  The band pulls off the long song and they also add some classic metal influences into the tune, making it a very creative and well done song.  “Final Judgement” closes out the album with a wonderful build up and punishing groove.  Slamming and moshing is absolutely guaranteed during this part.  A great growl comes in on time with the guitar solo.  We are treated to some growls, but this is really an instrumental.  It’s great, but as a I get older, ha, ha, I have less and less patience for instrumentals.  Regardless of the talented musicianship throw some vocals in.  But this is a killer instrumental.  There are moments where I wanted to hear some vocals, but shit I’m not in the band.  The cd is not a silver lined cd, it’s a cd-r.  You all have seen my ranting about cd-r’s.  They are less durable, scratch easier, will not play on certain devices and the musical imprint not as long lasting as a silver back cd.

Regardless of that fact, I am very, very impressed by the music Day of Doom writes.  They are an organic natural sounding death metal band.  In some respect they would be the perfect fit for Matt Calvert’s Dark Descent record label.  No frilly type shit, just punishing well played death metal with some doomy passages.  Plus Day of Doom knows how to capture the listener with the catchy brutality.  That’s talent right there.  The production is actually pretty goddamned loud too, the perfect way to wake your neighbors on a Saturday morning.  Descent of Humanity came out of nowhere and slapped me upside the head and I love it.  Buy or Die!

 

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