R.i.p. - Dead End

2020 release. When R.I.P. came crawling out of the sewers of Portland, OR four years ago, their grimy, sleazy street doom was already a fully formed monstrosity that quickly infected the minds of everyone it encountered. At the time, none of us expected it's depravity to take such fierce hold, and yet, here were are, sheltering in place and/or stealthily creeping through a nightmare dystopia that the '80s sci-fi/horror movies foretold. For Dead End, R.I.P. worked with legendary producer Billy Anderson, interring onto wax their heaviest and most ambitious album yet. Continuing to move further away from their classic doom influences like Pentagram and Saint Vitus, the band offers a rare blast of originality in a scene rife with formulaic bands. Dead End is a fast and anxious ride where the very idea of doom is put to the test under duress of manic lyrics about death, insanity, and leather, and hook-laden guitar tracks that draw as equally from Nirvana as Black Sabbath.