27th December 2021

Review: “Volume 60” by Doomsday Rejects

Taking their inspiration from Grindhouse movies, Doom Metal and all things Psycadellic are Jacksonville Florida Sludge Doom Metallers Doomsday Rejects who have returned following their Summer 2020 swamp rising “Volume six hundred” with “Volume 60“. Logically that means that for vocalist Lenny Smith, guitarist Roland Dean, bassist and lyric writer Jason Morgan and drummer Chris Capo “Volume 6” must be on the horizon. They’ve joined a growing roster at Kingside Records (H.O.U.N.D.S, Sore Teeth) for this one as a demonic figure watches on from his throne…

Doomsday Rejects specialise in classic slow headbangable riffs of Doom fuelled Sludge Metal that are accompanied by the kind of low budget horror stories you might expect from New World or AP studios and they make no secret of that. It’s their calling card, their trademark and their never ending inspiration but rather than the cheesy hammer horror stylings that you might expect from Wednesday 13, these are darker and the kind of source material that Rob Zombie might pluck for his next feature. Vocally, Lenny Smith takes things by the scuff of the neck with “Year of the Rat” using a caustic almost Death Metal style that make it a hard hitting start before the more incantation like style of “We Live Among the Flies” makes for something less powerful but more potent. If you imagine the eyes of a fly that see in a mosaic – thousands of tiny images convalesce, and together represent one visual image – that is what the vocal style represents, and is sounds pure evil, the voices of rotting corpses immobile yet talking in unison. There are plenty of ideas like that in this collection of offerings that help to make it more diverse sonically and step away from some of the monolithic tendencies of the genre which the band put themselves in. The a tale about the depression that has some solid rhythmic riffs that build a sense of tension in “Void Of Depression” with Dean adding some errie touches with leads to give it some extra fire is a fine example of that, a cut from the dark side of the human psyche that is just as inticing as the rest. The recording quality of this may not be as polished as some might like, the drums don’t sound as well mic’d up as they could be for example but that adds a kind of charm to the record that money simply can’t buy. For some reason the title a “Plague of Sparrows” had us thinking of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” but instead this one is about the breakdown of society in a dystopian future while offering up some dark and brooding sinister moments then you’ve got “Are You Born Again” which offers up some Southern Metal riffage while reminding that we must give the Devil his due. There is more to this than meets the eye and you might want to keep one on what’s going on behind you as this plays out… [7/10]

Track listing