Finding fusion of a lifetime’s worth of interests and weaving them together into irreverent, punishing experience fraught with ear-clinging details is no small feat in the hands of Oakland, California-based crossover thrash/metallic hardcore quintet DOOMSDAY who’ve outdone themselves with this nuke of a debut full-length album. ‘Never Known Peace‘ sticks out like blood-covered machete in a crowd both for its imposing, pit-stirring vibrancy but also the taste level shown as they pick and plunder from the 90’s and 2010’s for both prime-era metallic hardcore grooves and Bay Area-guided thrash metal showmanship. While it is rad that these songs have enough shredding to appeal to the old-school obsessed the big deal here is bringing the thunder and theatre of toughest hardcore punk to that level of skill as a rare and effective combination.

Doomsday formed circa 2018 via a grip of folks from the general Bay Area metalpunk scenery (Earth Down, From One Hell, Reapers Row) and at one point or another included folks involved in Spinebreaker as well as Ripped to Shreds. Their style was fairly straight forward California style metallic hardcore to start with some big thrash breakdowns, plenty of guitar solos and such on their first tape (‘Prologue to Chaos‘, 2018) bringing a kinda Texas crossover (Iron Age, Power Trip, etc.) feel to their next several formative releases with the ‘Depictions of Chaos‘ (2022) EP and subsequent tours with bands like Dead Heat and M.A.D. gaining a quick name for the band. That first official EP was their payoff for the years leading up and the 7″ EP (‘Doomsday‘, 2023) that followed was the main indication of where they’d take their sound next. As with most every crossover band in existence the path forward was basically “more metal” and in their case it was solo-spraying thrash oriented stuff from the start and things’ve only escalated beyond 2022. A band this young taking seven years to drop their full-length is unusual and the assumption is that they’ve put some serious time in making sure their debut counts. If nothing else what they’ve managed here is pretty damned seamless and all-pro from my point of view.

If there is a gimmick here I’ve missed it. Doomsday don’t have the hifalutin fantasy dramatism of High Command or the alt-rocking tunefulness of Take Offense but in the realm of modern crossover that butts up against metallic hardcore they’ve (relatively speaking) got riffs and provide some legit insight into how 90’s hardcore, classic crossover sounds, and neothrash all line up into something a fan of the late 80’s trend might actually want to listen to more than once. What is the big deal for my own taste? Beyond the void-generational calamity of their take their guitarists only seem to get better with each release marking ‘Never Known Peace‘ as a high water mark for those capabilities paired with the stuff that got me into hardcore punk and thrash metal in my youth (gang shouts, double-bass drumming, whammy bar abuse, etc.) with a frontman who sounds kinda like the vocalist from Madball when the going gets intense. The appeal really is that simple on my end.

It won’t hurt to slide a couple cuts into ‘Never Known Peace‘ and point right toward “Eternal Tombs” as a fine example of Doomsday rallying all cylinders, firing off riffs and stepping into some post-’95 tough guy edge (re: “Pain Dweller“, “Everyday War”) and the band cutting it sharp and sounding tighter than they’ve ever been on any recording. Anytime there is a moment to spare, any sort of potentially empty space their guitarists shred into leads like its the late 80’s and the fact that all of ’em are pretty damned good counts for a lot here, yanking the metal chain harder than even their previous EP. Opener “Death is Here” had already made this clear enough with its trample-in and snarl up front double-kicking through its shredding and chugging-fast reap, ensuring the listener that their action is all blades and menace up front ’til the melodic leads hit halfway through, dive-bombing out of their thrashing vault for the sake of a broken down verse. For my own taste this is both an expected sort of piece with an ounce of Rocky George feelin’ flair to the dual guitar attack but also an appropriately charged introduction.

‘Never Known Peace‘ presses the issue quick, you can feel the Terror-era toughness in their veins (via “The Outlaw” esp.) early on but we’re not outside the realm of ‘old school’ crossover entirely on the roll through. The real intensity of Doomsday is so fixed in their guitar performances and the harder clapped tautness of the rhythms section that everything is breathing sans the vocalist who leaves plenty of room for the instrumentals to set the charge. Over on Side B the title track (“Never Known Peace“) makes its mark per the exclamation at the end, setting punctuation that fans of classic hardcore (and metallic hardcore) will appreciate per this style. This’d brought up one of few true complaints here on my part in that these folks have put together such a slick record, tightened from the first to the last riff, but they haven’t left much room for the crowd stirrers, the sing-and-shout along stuff that brings folks to shows beyond whipping nerd fist. By the second half I’d felt like this record wasn’t likely to leave me with more than their machinery.

The attack was right and some of these songs have a hook in ’em but as the solos were flinging about, the riffs were hitting well enough but the personal experience stated by a central voice was still set aback. This wasn’t a huge detraction, and it makes sense per the band’s stated points of inspiration but I’d wanted an inch more personality from a crew able to get every other detail so squared away. On the other hand “Everyday War” gave me what I was looking for, a frantic and vocal-forward barker that rushes up on its gang shouts and buzzes through quick. At just about ~32 minutes it’d been hard to pick a favorite moment from the fray but the amped gear-up of “Everyday War” and “Eternal Tombs” felt like they’d left a mark and even just one memorable song or two sets Doomsday‘s gig apart from a thousand others.

The major impression I was left with was appreciable work put into every second of the music on ‘Never Known Peace‘ and Doomsday‘ve largely matched that with the curation of the packaging and cover artwork (via Spencer Davie) where the dark fantasy Mumm-ra and sepia undead battalion surrounding feels like a proper heavy metal image from the first glance. I dunno if these folks have written any songs that’ll stick in mind for eternity but I’d felt this record is a rare case of the modern standards for crossover exercised up toward the high-rate fire of the classic stuff, especially when considering the guitar work. If we’re just going for pure style consideration they’ve done a damned fine job of marrying solid taste in metallic hardcore and thrash metal’s late 80’s groove-n’-wail ethos, likely to impress general fans on both halves of the metalpunk mindset. A high recommendation.

---