Heya muttzilla, thank you for your comments! I started thinking about what you said, rip-off vs inspiration, and I think theres truth in that. My goal wasn't really to evolve the DOOM sound with my own flair or ideas - my goal was to make a DOOM track from scratch with a simple guitar riff I could perform (and all the producing work that goes into it) to learn how they're mixed and mastered. Maybe I shouldn't have used inspired? Maybe "study" or something similar.
I moreso am dissapointed that I appear to have made, for your tastes, a boring-composition DOOM track where there's also too much happening. Sorry about that! I'm bummed that it affected your enjoyment and didn't meet your hopes.
As for guitar presence, I think I put too much bass and sub in this mix - had I done an additional eq session on the final master this is probably what I would reduce just a tad, because the track's loudness and punch might be getting pulled due to excessive subs and that leaves the mids and highs used in the guitar with less loudness to work with.
Thanks again! I appreciate your insight!