Review: Summoning “With Doom We Come”

It’s a strange affair: more than 20 years Summoning, musically, is just a simple guitar riffs, not so tricky synth keyboards and, in fact, that’s all. Well, of course there is a John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s heritage as a cornerstone for Protector and Silenius’ creation (although this is not only band, which works are based on Middle-earth). However, despite all the above, Summoning is a known and recognized (even cultic) phenomenon. And their fans forgive them an absence of live shows and long breaks between the albums.

‘With Doom We Come’, an eights band’s LP made wait for it for five years. And, apparently, it played an evil joke – the expectations were overstated, so everyone prepared for, at least, a masterpiece. But ‘With Doom We Come’, alas, is not a masterpiece at all.

Eight album songs, if talk about them shortly, are “typical Summoning” with dominating keyboards, simple guitar riffs and slow tempo. Alas, but there is no song in an album which can be remembered from the beginning till the end. Although it is worth paying tribute, the songs turned out to be grandiose and monumental, both in atmospheric and in their length. Without counting an interlude “Barrow-downs”, the shortest one here is an “Herumor” (7:08).  And, of course, it’s worth to mention an epic “With Doom I Come” (11:18), which was released as a single on November, 20-th, where still can be heard distinctive screaming, but much more “soft” (thus, that it is possible to parse all the words).

With this, an album is good exactly with the fact that while listening to it you fully submerge to an atmosphere. The world around still exists, but the music is fascinating, so it’s very difficult to break away from it. And this is perhaps the most important.

No matter, that turning music off you can’t repeat any riff or keyboard pattern. The main thing about it that Protector and Silenius didn’t wasted their composers and arrangers talents for their side projects and created a dark atmosphere, in which you can submerge easily (however, it is just as easy to come up, and forget that it was exist).

‘With Doom We Come’ will be released on January, 5 via Napalm Records.