There is precedent in death-doom for a band to successfully evolve a less niche sound. This is far from radio-ready metal, but from the heavily repeated choruses on lead single “Deathtouch” to the stripped-down riffs that aim for some kind of universal interpretation of death-doom, this is as common denominator as it can be without breaking free of the genre completely. Maybe if I had, I’d have been ready for what I hear on Summoning the Slayer. I’m a fan of their first two albums, especially sophomore release Lords of Death, but I never got around to 2020’s The World that Was. I hear this reach for palatability in the fourth album by Michigan death doomers Temple of Void. Most bands that make this shift start by rounding corners and sanding edges off the sub-genre conventions they originate in. These moves ensured they’d continue to land on year-end lists of ever more mainstream publications, but talk to any fan of their older works and you’ll get an idea of what was lost in the shift from specificity to accessibility. Think Mastodon pivoting from their aggressive sludge to make The Hunter, or Gojira abandoning progressive death metal for the more generic style of their last few releases. I’m talking about bands who started in a tried and true metal sub-genre before reaching for a bigger piece of the pie. I’m not talking about nu-metal, which from the beginning was a ploy for hard rock radio stardom. Once The Black Album set a precedent for just how far the reach of a metal band could stretch – in exchange for certain compromises, of course – it was inevitable others would follow suit. This doesn’t always prevent metal bands who experience relative success from pursuing wider audiences. Casual metal listeners are practically non-existent because we who choose it do so more out of compulsion than want. Metal, especially extreme metal, is by its nature exclusive.
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