Doom Metal

Doom metal is a style of metal music that intends to wash its listener in an atmosphere of impending doom. Where some genres of metal focus on speed, virtuosity, or violence, doom metal prefers to plod along at a more dismal pace, placing emphasis on the spaces between notes rather than the notes themselves. Doom metal sounds thick, dense, and foreboding, and lyrical themes tend to revel in, as RateYourMusic puts it, "despair, tension and dread."

In 1970, a British band by the name of Black Sabbath released their eponymous debut album. As I have made clear in my previous entries, this album was monumentally important in terms of kickstarting the metal genre. While shaping hard rock into the new form of heavy metal, it also inadvertently paved the way for the traditional doom metal movement. Where Black Sabbath set the foundation, many bands picked up the torch. However, instead of speeding up the metal sound like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden did, they opted to keep it at the same slow tempos that Sabbath had put into place. Bands like Pagan Altar, Trouble, Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Bang, Witchfinder General, and the mighty Candlemass all made huge developments in continuing the traditional sound throughout the '70s and '80s.

Recommended traditional doom metal listening:
1. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)
2. Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus (1984)
3. Trouble - Psalm 9 (1984)
4. Pentagram - Pentagram (1985)
5. Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986)

In the 1980s, doom metal continued on its merry way. The traditional style was seeing much success in its own circles, particularly in Candlemass, who inspired a wave of bands with more operatic vocal approaches to sometimes dub themselves "epic doom metal." However once the late-80s and early-90s hit, another wave of new ideas materialized in the form of death doom metal. As the name implies, death doom metal consists of the fusion of death metal (a style that was manifesting heavily in both Florida and Sweden around this time) and doom metal. This incorporated faster tempos (though not far beyond mid-paced) and harsh, growled vocals. Lyrical concepts stayed in the bleak, despair-ridden facet though, and thus a subgenre was born. It was spearheaded by "The Peaceville Three," which was a nickname given to three United Kingdom-based bands that all started this style out of Peaceville Records: Paradise Lost, Anathema, and My Dying Bride. Other bands like Katatonia, Saturnus, and Swallow the Sun soon appeared, all taking after this new sound.

Recommended death doom metal listening:
1. Paradise Lost - Gothic (1991)
2. My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans (1993)
3. Anathema - The Silent Enigma (1995)
4. Katatonia - Brave Murder Day (1996)
5. Saturnus - Paradise Belongs to You (1997)

Once the 1990s were in full swing, doom metal began to branch itself out into newer territories. Subgenres that took a liking to slower or midtempo riffs, as well as massive amounts of psychedelic-sounding fuzz and distortion, began to overlap with the doom metal sound, resulting in three distinct fusion waves: stoner metal, drone metal, and sludge metal. Though all of these genres hold their own in the grand scheme of things, it is undeniable that doom metal influences and combines with these genres quite often. Each genre places emphasis on harsh sound, depressive lyricism, slow tempos, and other traits that define doom metal, and thus fit right into place like pieces of a puzzle. In the stoner doom corner, bands like Cathedral, Sleep, and Electric Wizard carry the torch. Sludge doom consists more of bands such as YOB and Ufomammut. Drone doom lies more in experimental groups such as Melvins, Sunn O))), and Jesu.

Recommended doom fusion listening:
1. Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain (1992)
2. Melvins - Lysol (1992)
3. Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics... (1997)
4. Ufomammut - Snailking (2004)
5. YOB - The Unreal Never Lived (2005)

Another wave of doom metal that took the stage in the late-1990s was funeral doom metal. As the name would suggest, funeral doom took the "slow" factor of doom metal and turned it up to eleven. Funeral doom metal songs move at a glacial pace, slowly creeping along and unfurling like a Lovecraftian horror lurches through the cosmos. It is often as introspective and philosophical as it is depressive and suffocating in nature. These bands and the music they create thrive on creating a vast, cold atmosphere; utilizing reverb and delay to provide a spacey and distant sound. Bands like Thergothon, Skepticism, and Esoteric deliver this dirge-like style, and have influenced wave after wave of others in the genre.

Recommended funeral doom metal listening:
1. Thergothon - Stream from the Heavens (1994)
2. Skepticism - Lead and Aether (1997)
3. Esoteric - The Pernicious Enigma (1997)
4. Evoken - Quietus (2001)
5. Shape of Despair - Angels of Distress (2001)

As the new millennium turned around, doom metal had established unique and devoted cult followings in all of its facets. Regardless of the genre's lack of popularity at all in the mainstream, bands continued to innovate and progress. Electric Wizard released their monumental magnum opus Dopethrone, as did Sleep with Dopesmoker, both playing heavily into the marijuana-fueled mindspace of the stoner metal genre. Notable releases also came from Celtic Frost, a proto-extreme metal band never afraid to push the envelope and venture into uncharted territory, as well as the elusive and atmospheric Warning. Even traditional doom metal found itself in a bit of a revival with bands such as Reverend Bizarre and Hour of 13.

Recommended '00s doom metal listening:
1. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2000)
2. My Dying Bride - The Dreadful Hours (2001)
3. Sleep - Dopesmoker (2003)
4. Celtic Frost - Monotheist (2006)
5. Warning - Watching from a Distance (2006)

The 2010s has also witnessed a surge in doom metal innovation. With Ghost coming into popularity, elements of doom metal are being reintroduced to modern rock radio. Ever since Black Sabbath, doom metal has been deemed too inaccessible for mainstream consumption, but through Ghost's unique blend of psychedelia and classic hard rock, many have been introduced to the wonderful world of metal history. Many breakthrough bands are coming out of each of the subgenres: death doom has produced The Ruins of Beverast, funeral doom has given us Bell Witch, and sludge-influenced doom like Subrosa and Sumac are gaining more and more attention each day. Traditional doom metal and heavy psych are being brought back with bands like Uncle Acid or Graveyard. Even Sleep made a huge comeback with their 2018 album The Sciences.

Recommended '10s doom metal listening:
1. Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust (2011)
2. Subrosa - More Constant Than the Gods (2013)
3. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata (2014)
4. Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper (2017)
5. Sleep - The Sciences (2018)

Doom metal remains, to this day, a prevailing example of a simple idea with many executions. It's not rocket science to figure out that much of metal revels in cynical pessimism, as most bands tend to create music based around many negative subjects. But in doom metal, negativity is not just the driving force behind the music, but behind the entire idea. To stare straight into the empty void and not find purely hopeless emptiness, but rather inspiration, is at the very least admirable. Doom metal's massive prevalence in metal culture from its very beginnings just proves the longevity of such an idea: that our purest sadness and emptiness can be shaped into something widely influential and ever-growing.