Get ready to gorship, boys and girls!
California's Christian deathcore practitioners Impending Doom are back with their first album in five years, and they're going grassroots with The Sin and Doom Vol. II.
Five long years have lapsed since the band that combine gore grind and worship released Death Will Reign through eOne Music. Bassist David Sittig tells Metal Injection that their long-awaited return comes after a much needed recharge, physically and creatively.
"We had spent like 10 years on the road basically," Sittig said. "Every year we would tour 10 months out of the year. We were basically gone since we got out of high school. We were a little bit burnt, but also at this time everyone was getting married, starting to have kids and not wanting to be away from home.The last full U.S. tour we did, being in the van or the bus every day and just going, I remember towards the end of that all of us were pretty much on the same page that we didn’t want to play any shows anytime soon. We were all kind of burnt and over it. That will do that to you after 10 years or so of doing it almost every night."
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After a series of more neatly produced records working with the likes of Zeuss (Rob Zombie, Hatebreed, Queensrÿche) and Will Putney (Every Time I Die, The Amity Affliction, Thy Art Is Murder), the five piece opted to go back to their roots, reteaming with Christopher Eck, who produced their very first album.
"The past two records that we did were like in bigger studios, spending more money and trying to get everything to sound perfect," said Sittig. "We wanted it to be tight and perfect. The first few songs that we wrote for this record, they just sounded more aggressive, more like what we first started doing. I don’t know how it got brought up about going back to Chris Eck. We might have said let’s go back to him and put out a nasty sounding record and try not to care about everything being sonically perfect. We wanted to sound dirty. Going back there and recording in the same place, it brought back those memories from when we did the first record. It’s kind of nostalgic and brings everything full circle."
While Impending Doom have always worn their faith close to the vest when it comes to their artistry, The Sin and Doom Vol. II. carries much of its thematic influence through the fucked up times we currently find ourselves in. Shit is crazy, and it makes for a damn good face melting metal song.
"Honestly, that’s what a lot of the lyrical content on this record is, what’s going on in today’s times, how horrible most of humanity is," Sittig says. "All these things you see in the news, pretty much every day now. You expect it and it’s not a shocker anymore. You hear 45 people killed in this bombing here. It doesn’t make it any less sad, but unfortunately we’re all conditioned to that now. It happens so much. There are so many horrible things going on, and that’s what a lot of this record is about.
"We just want to make a pissed off sounding record, and that’s the band we’ve always been," he adds. "Lots of bands these days that are heavier bands are getting softer and they’re trying new things. There’s nothing wrong with that and that’s all cool if that’s what your band wants to do. I think we’ve locked in our sound over the past couple records where we don’t care to stray far into experimental. We just want to keep getting heavier and maintain super heavy records. We want our fans to expect that when a new one is coming out that they don’t have to wonder did they go soft or start singing. We’re never going to do that, to be honest."
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Impending Doom have always straddled the line for many metal fans. Blisteringly heavy for some, while repellent for their beliefs to others, the band occupy a rare air in the metal universe. We doubt they'd have it any other way.
"When we started we all had the same beliefs but all listened to the same music, the heavy like Cannibal Corpse and Slipknot. We still love all those bands and listen to them all the time, but we don’t necessarily connect with them on a lyrical level. Musically, none of us listen to other Christian metal bands or Christian music. A lot of it sounds a little cheesy. That’s what we wanted to stay away from. It was like, how can we do this, sound like these evil bands, but not have an evil message? Have a positive message, but not sound cheesy with all these cheesy Christian lyrics. We try to keep it brutal with a positive message.
"It’s the one thing we have in common," he adds, as a final message to the metal masses. "Aside from the message, we all like brutal heavy sounding music."
The Sin and Doom Vol. II. is available June 22nd through eOne Music. Pre-order the album below.
