Album Review: "The Gates of Hell" by Day of Doom

The Gates of Hell

From Long Island, New York comes this brutal death metal band, Day of Doom.

This band has been around since 2000 chugging away in obscurity. They have recorded several demos that have not been seen by the wider world and they have also recorded two full length albums.

Both of those albums were self produced and self released. This is the first album that has been released by a label. The Czech metal label, Lavadome Productions, has signed them up and released their third album.

There is always an adjustment when a band changes from completely independent to being on a label, but did this calm down any of the extreme metal that was on their first few records or they still terribly evil and metal?

Day of Doom

As can be divined by the cover, the logo, and the album's title, nothing about this band has been remotely smoothed down at all. This is a decidedly heavy album and there's nothing resembling a pop sheen to it.

I first noticed how often the tempos change up in this record, but not just the normal breakdowns around the middle of the songs. The tempo changes are off putting, but in a great way.

The vocals, yes I know, often times have more than one voice growling along. Each member of the band is listed as slash vocals, so perhaps they're the death metal Kiss like Kiss was the Heavy Metal Beatles?

Unlike many other metal bands, death or otherwise, there is a groove to the music. All too often there is no soul to the music, but that is certainly not the case here.

Aside from the 4/4 rifftacular attacks there are subtle arpeggiated chords that give an ebb and a flow to the music. This is not simply a one dimensional metal record.

Back to the riffing, there is extreme power in the guitar playing. Even with only one guitarist, the album is full and thick.

Day of Doom has taken a page out of the Pink Floyd book and I suppose the heavy metal book of convention, and used vocal samples at the ends of tracks in order to enhance the vibe, and it worked. The speeches made me uneasy and then....

They hit you with a barrage of extreme death metal that strikes your senses doubly after having set it up, and when you get used to that, the song changes up and it feels like you're about to fall over.

Simply put, instead of trying to make a great death metal record, Day of Doom have made a great album that happens to be death metal. Anyone, that's not metal, who can get past the extreme vocals should be able to enjoy this record on some level.

Release: 6/6/14
Genre: Metal, Death Metal
Label: Lavadome Productions
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Purchase: Physical or Digital