Kingdom: Morbid Priest of Supreme Blasphemy (2013)

Lament for the Drummer

Review by joanismylover, the third metal attorney.

First Bill Ward is out of the Black Sabbath reunion, then Dave “Human Tornado” Lombardo gets booted out of Slayer regarding the age old business dispute over “accounting issues.”* Kingdom’s come and kingdom’s go. Metal is metal. Whatever happened to the drummer? Too many spontaneous combustions on stage? Too much carpal tunnel syndrome? Worker’s comp claims brining the metal drummer community down? Accept no drummer substitutes!

Kingdom need a new drummer. I really liked this release and wanted to like it more. There are some very cool moments on “Morbid Priest . . .”. The cover is cool, for starters. Old school hand drawn art with some skulls, horns, and demon winged dude in a cemetery. The guitar tone is good and the vocals not distracting. The songs are good and we even get some serious swagger on the Nameless King. That song definitely made me want to move and swing and bang my head. The whole album is short, and to the point, too. Kingdom has potential. But what’s promising on the otherwise cool album is dragged into an almost unlistenable zone with its ProTools sounding drums.


I have no idea if there is a drummer in this band or if they used ProTools. But I’m guessing no to the former and yes to the latter. If they have a drummer, the producer should be fired or spontaneously combust. The sound is horrible. Worse than Metallica’s most recent one, whatever that was called. Not only does the tin can drumming and rata-tatatatataatatatatatat drum sound poor, it dominates the album. It’s very high in the mix. Or at least that’s how it sounds. And the sound is so thin, it actually un-heavies the heavy** on this release. What could have been a monster turns into a mouse.

I am no drummer but I am an experienced listener of heavy metal music recordings. And I recommend that Kingdom fix its drum sound to bring out the heavy. I think there are some good candidates out there.

2.5 out of 5 stars

*Many an LLC and Partnership have been litigated and dissolved because of these.
**I'll trademark that. Is it first to file now in TMs, too?



Hellthrasher