A Trip Inside a Separate Mind

This is what passed for ‘humor’ with me at the time. Since I’ve already done the other two songs from the first Chapter of Monolith today, I might as well make it a hat trick.

The song “Doom Metal” was first written during that same time I resurrected Wanderlust and Doomsayer, and like those two it was first done on that second Rampage boombox tape (I guess I should do some kind of ‘session discography’ so people will know what happened when and all… let’s see if anyone cares enough to ask first :) ). The idea came from what was, in my mind, a very funny joke: Venom did “Black Metal”. Possessed did “Death Metal”. Who did Doom metal? Those two aforementioned songs hit all of the highlights and standard points of their chosen genres, so I thought “What would such a doom metal song entail?” It’d have to be slow and long, for sure. Lots of Tritone usage. Lyrics about depression and suicide. And the chorus would have to go “Dooooooom….. Metaaaallll…..”. Just the whole incongruity of a depressive/introspective song done in the manner of a ‘big swinging dick’ type of song like Death Metal seemed very funny to me.

I crafted the lyrics and music pretty much at the same time, somewhat in parallel. That clean E-Bb thing was the first part, then modifying it five or six times to get the bulk of riffs for the song. I was always rather proud how I milked that riff for so many versions at the beginning, especially when the double-kick comes in for that 16th-note crunch part. The verses, true to my form at the time, are just over simple 8th-note-open-E, since I was still not that great at singing and playing at the same time.

Darkness falls upon me swallows me whole
Curtains black as night swallow my soul
Suicide is chasing, death waits at my side
Fear and emptiness tear my heart wide 
Open

Doom Metal
Night is falling on me now

Alone and betrayed, shattered by life
Consumed by pain, anger, bitterness, and strife
There's no release from this nightmare
The gods of fate have wrecked my life
They never play fair
They never play fair

Doom Metal
Night is falling on me now

Ego trip for me
Turn my life inside out
Give up
End it all
Go out with a bang, not a whimper
Where's my gun?

The verses and choruses were set, but the middle open-chord section and solo were improvised the first time we did this. As I mentioned before, we recorded it for the first time on that second Boombox Rampage session, and did it two or three more times.

Then, of course, came the time I thought I would be doing the “Doom Metal” album after This End Up, which is how that version that got on the FS/Rampage split came about. Of course, it sounded so much better than TEU that I thought I should shelve it to get Bellum done… I liked double-tracking the solo on the Monolith version, but really I think both of those versions are roughly equal in terms of quality.

(I milk one riff for a lot of musical mileage, like Doomsayer, but I think this song comes off a lot better. This is another one I did a rehearsal version for later, but it came off much better than Wanderlust did. I’ll have to see about releasing that one - after some lyrical tweaks. From the original comment thread, Aerik said “Strange, some of your best lyrics and not-so-good lyrics.” He later explained that the ‘life/strife’ rhyme is one of the laziest ones used in metal. I never noticed that until he mentioned it, though…)