Welcome back to "let's listen to some jackass talk about music like he knows what he's doing", todays band is a Doom Metal outfit called HIGH FIGHTER. The new album from HIGH FIGHTER entitled "Scars & Crosses" came out earlier this year and it's time we take a look at whether or not this album is a Doom great or just doomed...

"Scars & Crosses" is an album full of different sounds between the traditional Doom Metal sound made popular by THE SWORD and REVEREND BIZZARE as well as the more recent Doom Metal sounds from bands like ELECTRIC WIZARD, WEEDEATER and DOPETHRONE and a little bit of a Hardcore sounds thrown into the mix. The album is heavy and gritty from beginning to end with nothing that really feels like filler, songs like "A Silver Heart", "The Gatekeeper" and "Down to the Sky" take a page straight out of THE SWORD's book and hold nothing back going straight for the throat with pure power. The changes between clean traditional sounding Doom Metal style vocals and harsh more Hardcore vocals is great in contrast and hard to really relate to any other band, I know many other bands mix clean and harsh vocals but none that I know of to this level except for MAYBE (and this is kind of pushing it) MASTODON. To talk about one specific song, I want to mention the title track "Scars & Crosses" because it's the most unique song on this album. Now here's the thing about this song, it doesn't change much from the other tracks, it's a fairly standard formula the band uses throughout the album, but the way the song changes especially in the chorus almost sounds like it's taking a hint from PANTERA. The sheer power put into the song and the way the vocals speed up to make it sound even stronger is something very few bands do. When closing out the song, it sounds like the album might break into a BLACK SABBATH cover, but alas, it doesn't and the album closes out.

Doom Metal for me is a lot like Black Metal, it took forever to finally get into it and I'm insanely picky about everything when I listen to it so it's hard to find many bands I actually like and can listen to from the genre. That being said, this is an album I'll be revisiting time and time again, the way it's written and the chances the band takes in mixing in such different sounds and styles is great. If you're a Doom fan or looking to get into Doom Metal, "Scars & Crosses" from HIGH FIGHTER is an incredibly good place to start.