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Impending Doom (US): The Serpent Servant Deathcore Facedown Records March 31st, 2009
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Review
The Serpent Servant by the U.S. band Impending Doom is a rather toned down version of their old style. Considering the band started out as a mixture of grindcore and deathcore, the material on this record may leave some former fans at a loss considering the laid back nature of the music present on here. Instead of relying on the grind aspect, the band has chosen to emphasize more on death metal sound, and how heavy they could possibly make it and their breakdowns. While the band's music may be a bit toned down with the lack of grindcore, that doesn't mean all the music on here is of a slow pace. Granted the opening track, "The Serpent Servant" has a much more laid back death metal feel to it, the following track "Anything Goes" runs the gambit between toned down versus to insane double bass kicks during the bridge of the song. After that song, the music stays at that sort of pace until "More Than Conquerors", that has some technical aspects during certain moments with the guitar riffs. Chances are you'll probably skip "Storming The Gates Of Hell" and/or "Welcome To Forever" to get to this song since the album starts to get repetative with the toned down sound. But, be warned, the ending of this can be rather drull as the breakdowns, for as heavy as they are, do start to sound very similar as the album progresses, and the ending is toned down and has the same kind of breakdowns you've heard since the start, leading into "Revival: America" which is one big breakdown to make the "core" kiddies happy, with an overly simple guitar riff that is annoying as hell played while the vocalist screams "Revival!!!" over it. "In The House Of Mourning" does pick up the pace again, mostly after the main verse thanks to the double bass kicks that build up until the first break down, then again until a bridge prior to a second breakdown. "When I speak", however, has breakdowns that are a little more spaced out, and is just all around faster, kind of like "More Than Conquerors" was. It's too bad that the last two tracks had to go back to the slower pace that practically every song on here has, except "Beginnings" which is also just somewhat painful to hear. The drumming on this is off beat during the bridges between the verse and the chorus and just sounds horrible. The Serpent Servant definitely isn't the worst deathcore album out there, but it really could have been better. While the music does rely on being very heavy and setting a doom-like tone, much of the album just becomes repetative. It sounds as if the band is trying to become a death metal/"core" version of Meshuggah on many of the tracks. The faster tracks off the album are good, as are "The Serpent Servant" and "Anything Goes", but after those you'll probably be hitting skip quite a lot unless you really enjoy breakdowns, or can truly appreciate a heavy sound over speed, repetative or no. This Christian deathcore act has one positive thing going for it on this release, and that is the vocalist, who matches the music perfectly. Aside that, if the music were changed up a little more instead of what sounds like a recycling of riffs found on other tracks of this release, it would be a more pleasant experience.
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