MONSTROSITY — Imperial Doom (review)

MONSTROSITY — Imperial Doom album cover Album · 1992 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Imperial Doom" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Florida based death metal act Monstrosity. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in May 1992. Monstrosity is probably mostly known for being the original home of later Cannibal Corpse vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher who left the band to join Cannibal Corpse after a couple of albums. Monstrosity is however the brainchild of drummer Lee Harrison who has soldiered on through lineup changes and various other obstacles through the years. Monstrosity formed in early 1990 and released the "Horror Infinity" demo later that same year. All four tracks from the demo have been re-recorded and included on "Imperial Doom". There have been one lineup change since the demo, as Jason Gobel (Cynic) guests as second guitarist on the album.

The music on "Imperial Doom" is classic US death metal. Technically well played and brutal death metal. The album contains 9 tracks and a total playing time of 35:08 minutes. Featuring a relatively short playing time like that, it shouldn´t be an issue maintaining the listener´s attention through the duration of the album, but while the music is certainly well played and delivered with conviction there are some features which aren´t up to par with the best contemporary releases in the genre. Few tracks stand out on the album and after listening to the first couple of tracks the album becomes a bit one-dimensional. The sound production is also a bit off. The drums as such have a nice organic tone, but especially the bass drum sound at times makes the soundscape a bit murky. The rhythm guitar tone could also have prospered from more bite and power.

"Horror Infinity (1990)" was a relatively promising demo by Monstrosity, but I don´t think "Imperial Doom" quite lives up to that promise. It´s not a bad quality death metal album by any means, and fans of early 90s US death metal will probably find lots to enjoy here, but the quality of the songwriting and the production job are simply of an average quality compared to other contemporary releases (compare it to the quality of contemporary releases by artists like Death, Obituary, Deicide and Morbid Angel, and it falls a bit short). A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.
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