Album Review: Doomriders - 'Darkness Come Alive'

Huge fan of Doomriders right here, and how could you not be when the band’s lineage includes contemporary metal and hardcore royalty such as Nate Newton (Converge) and JR Conners (Cave In), not to mention members of Disappearer and Cast Iron Hike. Whilst referring to these guys as a super group may be a bit of a stretch (come on, there’s no one from Led Zeppelin or Queens Of The Stone Age involved), you’d be forgiven for assuming that the personnel on hand could churn out a stellar record without breaking a sweat. So is Darkness Come Alive the metallic masterpiece we were hoping for/expecting? Yes and no. The seventeen songs on offer are most definitely raging, with riffs a plenty, a gritty vocal delivery and another top-notch effort on the kit from Mr Cave In, but – and this is a big but – the constant references to current progressive giants Mastodon did sour my overall opinion of the album.

After the eighties style intro of “Fade To Black” is done with, Doomriders launch into “Heavy Lies The Crown”, a track that highlights the band’s move away from the more direct sounds of their previous full-length and showcases their love of staggered tempos and Sabbath inspired shredding… which would be cool if we hadn’t already heard the bulk of it a few years back when Mastodon knocked us all on our arses with Leviathan.

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“Bear Witness” and “Knife Wound” prove that Doomriders are at their bombastic best when they pick up the pace a little bit, while “Come Alive” could very well be this record’s answer to “Midnight Eye” (the bluesy standout from their debut Black Thunder). Moving into the album’s mid-section jams like “Crooked Path” and “Lions” are sincerely enjoyable with their pummeling bottom end, however it was the shout along anthems such as “Mercy” and “Bloodsucker” that really made me stand up and pay attention.

Although Darkness Come Alive doesn’t venture into the same realm of technical wizardry as the aforementioned Atlanta four-piece (and indeed, their peers in Baroness), the similarities in Nate’s singing and the record’s more intricate guitar passages have stopped Doomriders from solidifying their own sound and identity, thus reducing them to living in Mastodon’s sizeable shadow. Here’s hoping the problem is remedied on album number three, as there is a lot of potential here!

01. Fade from Black

02. Heavy Lies the Crown

03. Bear Witness

04. Knife Wound

05. Come Alive

06. Night Howler

07. Crooked Path

08. Lions

09. The Equalizer

10. Night Lurker

11. Jealous God

12. Mercy