Band:	Summoning
Album:	With Doom We Come
Style:	Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	January 05, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Tar-Calion
02. Silvertine
03. Carcharoth
04. Herumor
05. Barrow-downs
06. Night Fell Behind
07. Mirklands
08. With Doom I Come
09. As Echoes From The World Of Old [special edition bonus]
10. And Wonder Walks The Forest Eaves [special edition bonus]

Summoning claim to come with doom, but it's still synthy atmospheric black metal, not doom metal. While that would be an interesting turn of events, you cannot blame Summoning for sticking to the formula. You could, however, blame them for the godawful production on this album.

So let's get this out of the way. This is the worst sounding Summoning album, except maybe their debut, but at least that has the excuse of being released in 1995 and being much more kvlt. This has nothing to do with how the songs are written or performed, but even though Summoning have had worse recording, they didn't have such awful mixing and mastering. That is With Doom We Come's major crime. Also some of the transitions from track to track are pretty off-putting. Take the production away and you have a pretty decent album.

Summoning have been getting some competition ever since they released their last record, Old Mornings Dawn 5 years prior. One needs only to look on some of the names on the 2016 tribute album In Mordor Where The Shadows Are like Caladan Brood, Emyn Muil and Eldamar. While Summoning get all the glory for creating this sound, here on With Doom We Come they fall just slightly short of expectations. When the production issues aren't as prominent, Summoning deliver some interesting sounds, like the spoken word on "Tar-Calion" or the outro of "Mirklands", or even the entirety of "Silvertine", which is to me the album's highlight. Sometimes you may get lost in the trance and almost feel like striding along an army on scorched earth, just almost. The album's closer and almost title track, is however, overcrowded by muddied choirs and flutes that tarnish any potential bombastic epicness.

This is not a bad album. The songs are well-written, the vocals are great, and the mastering isn't always off-putting. Summoning earned all their glory and have nothing left to prove, but given their old material and new material from their clones, it really could be much better.