Cucurbitophobia - Doomsday Clock

Cucurbitophobia is the solo project of Rob Benny whose usual sound design revolves around horror, Halloween, and general spooky soundtrack-esque noise. Most of their works are concept pieces with their latest single, ‘Doomsday Clock’ being no different. The gist of the story is set in a post-apocalyptic environment. Those who desire or have contributed to civilization’s destruction must relive those same horrors themselves on repeat.  ‘Doomsday Clock’, however, brings an unfamiliar tone to Cucurbitophobia as he experiments with industrial metal music. However, Cucurbitophobia’s jump into industrial metal is not that special. ‘Doomsday Clock’ simply sounds like a generic metal instrumental shoved on top of a few electronic beats. 

‘Doomsday Clock’ takes no time to introduce us to the industrial metal rhythms that Cucurbitophobia so eagerly wishes to demonstrate. But it’s lacking. Lacking in the sense that the guitar riffs and chugging heaviness is rather standard for the genre. The drum work on the track is also extremely bland and almost sounds as if it was taken from stock and shoved into the song.  The quieter moments on the track are interesting and provide a much-needed break from what I consider to be a stale instrumental, but those moments aren’t anything great either. Though I do appreciate the fact that Cucurbitophobia understands that songs need to be broken up in order to not be too repetitive. 

If Cucurbitophobia wishes to continue in this direction, then he needs to find a way to stick out from the crowd. There’s a lot of oversaturation in all genres in the 2020s, and what he put out on ‘Doomsday Clock’ doesn’t sound refined or all that interesting. This isn’t to knock him completely; there are other works he’s done in the past that reminisce horror movies of the past due to the songs spooky atmospheres. But I’ll let you discover those on your own. This song, however, is a solid pass for me. Four out of ten.