Sonny's Reviews
Whilst dropping the overtly celtic influence of debut album Heimweh, this still reveals it, albeit more subtlely, in the songs' melodies (except for the last half of closing track Endless Night which feels like a blackened Hogmanay celebration). The production is a little muddy for a black metal release with a fair bit of echo on the vocals. The songs are well-written, however and I do like the drum sound but, for me, disappointingly, this is a step down from the debut, an album I'm a huge fan of.
Genres: Black Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
This debut release from UK black metal outfit, Crom Dubh is a terrific example of celtic-influenced atmospheric black metal. I like old-school "true" black metal as much as anyone, but I also love the newer, less spiteful sounding, wave of pagan, nature-themed so-called "atmospheric" black metal of which this is a particularly fine example. The trap this genre sometimes falls into is of becoming all-atmosphere and no song, but this album does consist of actual songs, rather than merely musical "pieces".
In places the album is even in danger of becoming "catchy" and the bagpipe-evoking guitar sound reminded me bizarrely of 80's celtic rock band Big Country. Probably not an album for the black metal purists, but if your more open-minded about your BM then give it a try.. what have you got to lose?
Genres: Black Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2015
Let's get one thing straight, this album is not depressing. How can something that sounds so amazing be depressing? The only depressing music is bad music and this is most definitely not that. Sure, this conjures up a melancholy atmosphere and may thematically tackle depressing or morbid topics that the majority of people don't wish to think about, but that does not a depressing album make.
The songs are slow, with heaving guitar and growled vocals, but there is also a lightness to the melodies provided by the violin, subtle keys and the female vocals. I love this contrast in sounds between the abyssal and the angelic that really great funeral doom excels at and this pulls that off fabulously well.
Fallen, the opening track, serves as a kind of overture, introducing the themes the listener can expect to hear over the next fifty-odd minutes and setting up the rest of the album magnificently. Tracks like Quiet These Paintings Are and ...To Live for My Death... have some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful melodies contrasting and accentuating the sheer despair you feel in Pasi Koskinen's anguished vocals as he growls out his impending and irrevokable loss.
Ok, maybe I have made it sound like a depressing album, but this truly is an album that manages to find and express the beauty that can be found in even the darkest of places, gifting the listener a knowledge that there are others who understand these feelings, making it not a source of depression, but a flickering flame of hope for any finding themselves in the depths of despair.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2001
An absolutely sublime album that comprises a single 40 minute track that blends drone, ambient, doom and classically-influenced passages. At times sounding fragile and ethereal, at others seismically slow and mountainously heavy, I was left breathless after the first listen. Yet another great example of challenging, yet still listenable metal.
Genres: Drone Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2016
I was decidedly underwhelmed by Vin de Mia Trix' turgid debut, Once Hidden From Sight. This, however, is a completely different beast - and beast it is, with it's four tracks weighing-in with a combined runtime of almost 100 minutes (and I loved every one of them!) Using funeral doom as a foundation then adding elements of death and epic doom, quieter, almost ambient passages and even a couple of sections that sound suspiciously like Thrash to me! Don't let me give you the impression that this is just some scattershot approach, all these elements flow together naturally and the songs are artfully constructed, with a skill that brings to mind the masters of extreme prog metal, like (early) Opeth and Enslaved. This is epic stuff and, unbelievably, Hypnotic Dirge are offering it as "name your price" on Bandcamp (effectively free), so do yourself a favour and get on over there!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2017
The first release from Scots Sluagh, a band featuring members of several Edinburgh metal acts such as Haar, Barshasketh and Of Spire & Throne who's remit is apparently to tell "tales from the ancient Highlands, a glimpse into a long forgotten past". This is no Andy Marshall-inpired celtic-themed nature black metal however, instead it sounds angry and aggressive, suggesting hard times and violence, rather than sweeping vistas of mountain tops and wooded valleys.
Genres: Black Metal
Format: EP
Year: 2020
I find sludge to be the hardest sub-genre of Doom to get into usually, but this is one of the better examples I've heard so far. Darkly disturbing and brimming over with anger, this feels like the outpourings of a person who has known real adversity in their life. It's as heavy as f**k, yet remains focussed and doesn't lose sight of the need to perform actual songs, rather than merely becoming a directionless rant, as so many sludge albums seem to.
Genres: Sludge Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2011
This first release from mysterious Poles, Mordenheim, is an EP consisting of a single 26 minute track. The production is DIY with an awfully muddy sound that makes the music indistinguishable at times, sounding more like a subway train rumbling through a tunnel than an actual song. This is a great pity, as it sounds as if, with a much better production, it would be quite a hypnotic track of droning death doom.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: EP
Year: 2020
Ultra-heavy, pounding, sludgey doom with desperate sounding female vocals that make for a mightily impressive debut full-length. Surprisingly dark and bleak for a band that comes from somewhere as hot and sunny as Arizona. I'm sold!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2017
Australia's Lovecraft-obsessed funeral doom merchants, Obed Marsh, switch their attention from The Shadow Over Innsmouth to The Dunwich Horror for this, their second album. Doom, particularly funeral doom, seems especially suited to conveying the atmosphere of lurking dread that is such a huge component of Lovecraft's literature and Obed Marsh make a respectful and respectable stab at it. Although I prefer the debut musically, this album's atmosphere is more fitting to the story upon which it's concept is based. In my opinion, this is a band who deserve far more credit than they have (so far) received.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
This is a concept album based on the Shadow Over Innsmouth story by H.P.Lovecraft, a tale of the deformed and altered adherents of an ancient demon cult who inhabit a mouldering New England fishing town. The music is slow and brooding funeral doom with titanic riffs and shrieked vocals, that is a style I've been finding myself drawn to ever more in recent times. As far as the concept goes, I personally don't think the music particularly fits the story. The massive, glacial riffs and echoing vocals sound more suited to a story like Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, a tale of an ancient city of huge, cyclopean halls that echo to the long forgotten nightmares of some inconceivably aged alien precursor race. Saying that, though, the album does convey an unsettling feeling of unease and an inexplicable notion that there is something very sinister going on, just under the surface of our reality. I would say that, as a Lovecraft concept album, a worthy attempt and as a slab of funeral doom, a great success.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2016
I've only really had a passing relationship with Swallow the Sun, I'm afraid. I quite enjoyed 2007's Hope and '09's New Moon even more so, but I never really "got into" the band like I did many other death doom outfits. Maybe, at the time, I considered them a little too melodic in a genre I love best at it's filthiest-sounding. Anyway here I am revisiting them and listening with fresh ears, hopefully.
The Morning Never Came was the Finn's debut album, released in November of 2003 and is indeed an album with a melodic take on the death doom formula. It is reasonably accessible with it's hauntingly charming synths and it's mournful riffs and may well appeal to metal fans looking for a gateway into extreme doom. The vocals aren't the usual cavernous, languid death growls, but are more forceful and urgent, ofttimes with a hint of a blackened shriek about them. I feel the album is at it's best when they manage to pull off the trick of sounding both melodic and apocalyptic at the same time, such as during the superb Swallow. The dichotomy this creates is extremely successful at portraying both beauty and it's destruction and the dynamic of life that means ultimately all must pass.
This is a great release by a band I will certainly be taking a lot more of an interest in now that I've finally got round to giving them the attention they rightly deserve.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2003
After disbanding Celtic Frost on a musical high with the doom-inspired Monotheist, Thomas Gabriel Fischer formed Triptykon, a band who would continue to build on that style of metal. This is their second album and it's a bit of a monster, weighing in at well over an hour and embracing several different styles from doom to death to thrash metal and with a vein of Eighties-influenced gothic rock running through a lot of the runtime.
Tree of Suffocating Souls kicks things off in old-school Celtic Frost fashion, complete with one of Tom's trademark "death grunts" and a killer of a central riff. TGF has always had a unique guitar sound that is really well suited to either thrash, death or doom metal and it sounds awesome on this opening track, getting the album off to a great start. Next track, Boleskine House (the house that used to be the home of Aleister Crowley which was bought by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in the 1970's) is a classic of eerie, gothic doom metal, featuring sublime female vocals from Simone Vollenweider. The out and out doom metal of Altar of Deceit is crushing, the uptempo, downtuned death metal of Breathing is punishing and any other cliches I can throw at them, except they aren't cliches if they're true.
Aurorae sounds like Killing Joke chilling with Billy Duffy and Andrew Eldritch after a particularly strong bong hit as the album's gothic content hits it's max and being a huge 80's goth rock fan, I love it! Demon Pact is doomy, but with a ritualistic atmosphere, created mainly by the drums, as if the band are trying to summon an ancient Babylonian demon. In the Sleep of Death is my least favourite track on the album, sounding a little bit cheesy lyrically, despite it's musical weight. Black Snow is a chugging behemoth, sounding like a slowed-down track from CF's To Mega Therion heyday, telling the tale of a dying tyrant facing up to his imminent demise. Waiting closes the album in a relatively gentle manner, with faintly weird triple vocals and an ethereal atmosphere.
So, a pretty great album with plenty of variety and songwriting skill from an extreme metal veteran, inspiring for all us old bastards out there!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2014
This is the debut album from spanish black metal trio Grimah, featuring five tracks and a brief intro spanning 43 minutes. Thematically it's dense lyrics deal with nihilism and existential acceptance. Musically it takes the form of aggressive, yet fairly melodic black metal that verges on atmo-black at times (closer Péndulo de Agonía y Desdén for example). The vocals are atypical for a lot of black metal, being less shrieking screams and more like vicious barks. It is energetic and quite exhilharating, considering the subject matter and I'm interested to see where these guys go from here.
Genres: Black Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2020
Haunt were formed as a solo project by Beastmaker's Trevor William Church, but have since been expanded to a full four-piece. TWC in his capacity as leader of both Haunt and Beastmaker, has released a ridiculous amount of music in the last couple of years and, on the evidence of this, he needs to apply a bit of quality control instead of releasing every musical thought. This is uninspiring and unmemorable speed / heavy metal with the occasional hair metal-style song (complete with naff 80's synth). The bored-sounding vocals do nothing to persuade me otherwise, as if the band themselves aren't even convinced.
Genres: Heavy Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2020
Yob are another outfit hailing from the fruitful US doom scene based around Eugene and Portland in Oregon and are centred around vocalist / guitarist (and founder) Mike Scheidt. Their sound is super heavy, sludgy stoner doom with extended jams that mesmerise and hypnotise then crush the listener like a reticulated python, before swallowing them whole.
2005's The Unreal Never Lived, the band's fourth album, spreads it's four tracks over 51 minutes and with the shortest being almost ten minutes they allow the songs to grow and mutate without ever deviating from the fundamental heaviness that makes them what they are. The lyrics are chiefly concerned with spiritual philosophy and the human psyche, typical stoner-related ponderings, although delivered quite aggressively considering the themes.
Musically, opener Quantum Mystic kicks off like a super-heavy version of Pink Floyd's One of These Days before morphing into what seems like Peace Sells... era Megadeth kicking out a doom metal jam. Grasping Air is a slower, more creeping affair, befitting the negativity of it's lyrical theme and Kosmos is a thundering starkiller of a song. The album culminates in the 21 minute monster that is The Mental Tyrant, a track that starts from steady, humble beginnings and evolves into a heaving beast, climaxing with a massive thrashy, sludge riff before fading away with a very weird chanted epilogue.
Whilst being somewhat ambivalent towards Yob's earlier output, I've got to confess to loving this album, far and away their best as far as I'm concerned and one of the best examples of stoner doom out there. An album for those who think Electric Wizard are pussies!
Genres: Doom Metal Sludge Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2005
I believe this is the Portuguese duo's final release having now split and, to be honest, I'm not surprised. I don't know if this is a case of a band trying too hard to be edgy and intense, but it comes across as just so much sonic vomit.
Genres: Black Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2020
Worship were a funeral doom duo formed in 1998 and based in Munich comprising Daniel "Pan" Vaross and Maximilien "The Impaler of Trendies" Varnier (aka Fucked-up Mad Max). They recorded this four-track demo in April of '99 and released it as a limited edition cassette via Max's own Impaler of Trendies record label. It was then picked up by Weird Truth and received another (very) limited cassette release. And so it would probably have ended, except that in June of 2001 Fucked-up Mad Max lived up to his name and proved that the isolation and melancholy expressed in his music was no mere aesthetic choice but something he lived every day, when he commited suicide by throwing himself off the Edmonton High Level Bridge. The ensuing notoriety ensured that the demo had several more widespread releases on both vinyl and CD and word soon got around.
So to the actual music! Sometimes it is hard to come to a release without any bias, especially one as notorious as this, but in the realms of funeral doom, this is about as authentic as it gets. The production isn't great, obviously as it was a demo recording, but that's not really too much of a concern in extreme metal, be it doom, black or any other type of metallic extremity for that matter. In fact, a rough, lo-fi sound can add a certain edginess or filthiness to a release that a cleaner production fails to deliver and is certainly the case here.
First track Whispering Gloom is an extremely well-written track and is probably the most interesting on the album, consisting of morbidly slow, sustained chords, Max's guttural growls and soaring lead work, which is then thrown into sharp contrast as the track pauses for breathe with a minimalistic spoken word section, before kicking back in, sounding even more desperate than before, the inate despair highlighted by a particularly mournful-sounding piano picking out single notes over the glacial central riff.
A personal favourite of mine is the closing track (of the tape version anyway), the eponymous Worship, a sheer titan of a track that crushes any clinging hopefulness out of the listener before album's end. It's first eight or nine minutes keep a grindingly slow tempo with Max's contemptuosly growled vocals counterpointing Dan Vaross' plaintive guitar tone. At this pont the bass seems to pick out a heartbeat and with the gently picked guitar builds a sense of impending doom, then heightened as the throbbing riff kicks in and the vocals return, but this time with a ritualised, chanted feeling, the track ending as Max growls prophetically "Kill yourself and worship".
The CD also features a bonus track, Keep On Selling Cocaine to Angels, which was released as Worship's side of a split EP with belgian grindcore act, Agathocles and features more of the same utter misery which is great to hear, although I do prefer the original tape ending with Worship's chaotic climax and Max's final line seems a fitting ending to such a seminal recording.
There are, arguably, few better examples of the true expression of funeral doom metal than Last Tape (or CD, or Vinyl) and it's unremittingly bleak vision, completely lacking in solace or, indeed, any positive emotion whatsoever. If you're adverse to introspection then you're probably best advised to steer clear of albums like this, but if you have no fear of gazing into the abyss then you really need this *record / tape / disc (*delete as necessary). Arguably the best doom metal demo ever released.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1999
I'm guessing that Wolf Counsel have been heavily influenced by the likes of Hour of 13, Briton Rites and Seamount - the singer sounds very much like Phil Swanson and the meaty, heavy-riffing songs have also come out of the same stable as those venerable doom metal stallions. If you're doubtful then try the title track - doom metal heaven!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
I loved Wolf Blood's debut, but this is a step up, the songwriting is better and the playing is tighter. It feels like they are a band really getting into their stride now. The first four tracks are played at quite a blistering pace for doom metal, yet are still demonstrably so. However, Story of a Drowning Man and Tsunami are where it's truly at (for me anyway). The pace is reigned in and we're back in more familiar doom territory, both tracks being allowed to build slowly to a crushing crescendo like, dare I say, a doom metal tsunami, washing away all before them. The dual male / female vocals are another masterstroke, complementing each other perfectly, then let's not forget the riffs that just keep on coming... and coming.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
Named for the Soviet tank production facility at Chelyabinsk during WW2, this slab of Polish true doom is as heavy as any of the IS-2s that rolled off those Russian production lines. Four of it's five tracks lyrically mine the doom metal motherlode of WW2 itself, written from the points of view of nazi SS Officer and war criminal Joachim Peiper (Ostatni Sen Joachima), sailors in an arctic convoy being hunted by U-boats and stukas (Arkhangelsk), a german soldier being evacuated for leave from the front by plane (Lot do Kraju) and a U-boat crew facing unremitting boredom punctuated by spurts of sheer terror (Żelazne Trumny). Mir, the closing track, is a reflection on the effects of the collapse of the USSR on the millions of workers who depended on it for their living, musing on a symbol of that once mighty empire - the Mir space station.
The riffs are slow and heavy with slightly echoing vocals that lend the atmosphere a hopelessness that the doomed protagonists of the songs' lyrics face. There are more restrained passages, particularly during both Lot do Kraju and Mir where the desperation is replaced with a more melancholy resignation. Totalitarian is, however, mainly about crushing doom in the vein of a band like Monolord, although they particularly remind me of England's Witchsorrow, only with better songwriting. Any true doom-head should find this harder to resist than crack-infused Pringles!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
Scald were a russian five-piece band that played epic doom metal (termed "ancient doom metal" by the band themselves) in a style derived from early Candlemass, but were actually more similar in style to UK outfit Solstice. This, their first and only full-length album has achieved legendary status amongst doom metal devotees, not only because of the tragic circumstances surrounding the band, splitting in '97 following the death of lead singer Agyl in a traffic accident, but also because it is one of the finest albums of that particular style of doom metal. I have also seen comparisons to Bathory bandied about and, in a weird way, it kind of holds water, certainly as an influence anyway.
Personally, I would put it only a notch below the aforementioned Solstice's New Dark Age and Candlemass' debut as one of my favourite slabs of epic doom. The production is not as clear and crisp as may be expected from this style of doom, but instead reminds me heavily of the production on Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens, with the keyboards playing a similarly important part of the sound, in this case lending the album a triumphal, martial atmosphere and a muddy bottom end and drum sound. The riffs and particularly Agyl's earnest vocals are what really puts the epic into this doomed beast, though. I can well imagine Agyl not being at all out of place as the vocalist for any number of power metal bands but, thankfully, he diverted his efforts into doom instead and, it must be said, was a unique voice in the field.
The songwriting is also superb, with every track being memorable enough to stick in the mind long after the disc has finished spinning, none of the songs becoming samey or boring, despite their length. I find I'm discovering something more every time I play this amazing record and it is one that I find myself loving even more as time passes. This is one of the seminal releases in the realm of doom metal and any devotee really should get hold of a copy (personally, I paid €27.00 for a copy of the Wroth Emitter CD and think it was worth every penny!)
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1996
Uncompromising sludgy death metal that purports to "detail the exploits of a mythic beast undergoing change in its most raw form." It's lyrics are certainly blood-soaked and merciless (there's even a lambasting for the climate change deniers and those who are unconcerned about it in the words to Burning Earth). Overall an aggressive and exhilharating ride on this death sludge beast - just be careful you don't fall and become trampled underfoot!
Genres: Sludge Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
Proper old-school Sabbath-Worshipping Trad Doom turned out from the mould that produced Reverend Bizarre, Krux, Seamount and their ilk. Heavy as shit, great songs, decent vocalist - could be my favourite Belgian doom album!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
Skepticism were formed in 1991, releasing a death metal 7" in 1992, before a change in sound resulted in them, along with fellow Finns Thergothon, being credited with the development of funeral doom metal. In 1995 they released their debut, the seminal and oft-praised Stormcrowfleet album.
This, their follow-up to that genre-defining release, consists of half a dozen tracks of exceedingly slow and oppressive-feeling doom metal. The tracks range in length from six to ten minutes, but the all-enveloping, smothering nature of the music makes them seem longer (in a good way). The sound is seriously downtuned, with slow, deep, drum beats, as if some unnamed titan's heart can be heard beating in the bowels of the earth. The vocals are barely distinguishable as such, sounding like the grating of a huge block of stone as it seals the entrance to a subterranean tomb, blocking out all light with it's bulk. The keyboards and guitar are more subdued than is usual but I don't feel that this album is particularly melancholy or depressing, but it projects more of an ancient martial atmosphere that may feasibly have accomanied the passing of a company of war elephants as they leave on a march to conquest.
There are quite a number of similarities between this and the aforementioned Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens and both albums can justifiably be held up as the standard against which all other funeral doom releases are judged, epitomising all that this style of extreme doom is about. They both are able to project epicness and true heft with, what is essentially, a stripped-down style of metal.
As an interesting aside, the band released an EP, Ethere, around the same time that has alternate versions of a couple of the tracks from Lead and Aether, The March and the Stream and Aether which seem starker and less oppressive than their album counterparts. Both versions are great in different ways and make the EP a very worthy companion piece to the full-length.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1997
On the absolute doom metal scale, if at one end are positioned the darkest, heaviest bands such as Burning Witch or Winter, then at the opposite end of the scale are Trees of Eternity. This is light and airy doom metal with ethereal female vocals. To me this type of doom is aimed more at younger fans for whom melancholia is an aesthetic choice rather than the cynical morbidity of (probably older) fans for whom doom is more an actual part of who they are. I am aware that there is an additional aura of genuine tragedy surrounding the album with the passing of Aleah Starbridge before it's release. However, judging it solely on the musical content, I consider this as akin to the Twilight movies of doom metal, so, no, I'm not really a fan.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2016
One of the greatest albums of the NWOBHM era and a genuine early doom classic, the slightly quirky twist on the Sabbath template sets it apart from other albums from the time. I've been giving this album regular plays for nearly forty years now and will never tire of it. Unfortunately the band failed to live up to that promise with disappointing follow up Friends of Hell signalling the start of a lengthy period of hibernation. Yet saying that, how many mediocre outfits would sell their souls for even one album this good?
Genres: Doom Metal Heavy Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1982
I consider Reverend Bizarre to be the epitome of what I would term "true" doom metal. Their slowed down Sabbathian riffs and eschewing of any frills results in a stripped-to-basics sound that is shorn of any pretentiousness and has since been taken up by bands like Pallbearer and Procession. In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend, released in 2002, was the Finnish trio's debut and ultimate statement of their doom metal philosophy. It's six songs span an hour and a quarter, ranging in length from five to twenty minutes and are ploddingly slow so, consequently, not for the faint-hearted or doom metal newcomer. Albert Witchfinder's (Sami Hynninen) vocals are functional, but his tone perfectly suits the mood the band are trying to create. Thematically, we're talking Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent Price, Roger Corman territory, so nothing too serious and the only thing about the band that isn't "heavy"! If you love downtuned, extended metal dirges that make no pretense of being high art and are slightly tongue-in-cheek lyrically, then RB should definitely appeal.
As an aside, if you can get the double disc version packaged with the Return to the Rectory EP that weighs in at a whopping 140 minutes (and features the classic love song to Christina Ricci, Goddess of Doom) then definitely go for that as it's more of the same - doom metal nirvana!
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2002
A single sixty-minute track of ambient music that suggests the passage of the listener through the reaches of space, periodically interrupted by massive, heaving doom chords that imply the impact on the listener of the huge pull of gravity wells from passing planetary bodies. Atmospheric and meditative, albeit not for those with short attention spans or adrenaline junkies.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2011
Without wishing to sound too contentious, I've got to confess to being underwhelmed by October Tide's brand of melodic death doom. Despite believing that Katatonia are not wholly deserving of the amount of adulation that gets heaped upon them, I have to admit that Brave Murder Day is a great record, in my opinion massively aided by the presence of Mikael Akerfeldt's vocals. But this, which is to all intents and purposes the follow up to that record as it was recorded by the majority of Katatonia's BMD lineup, is a bit of a damp squib to my ears. It's a highly polished and melodic album sure enough, but I far prefer death doom with a more sulphurous and fetid atmosphere, a sound that feels lived in and more organic. I don't feel the growled vocals add anything to the sound and in a couple of cases I think the tracks would be far more effective with clean vocals (All Painted Gold for example). The keyboards are lacklustre, seemingly interrupting a track for no discernible reason (the mid-section of Infinite Submission sounds like an ambient bridging track from a second-rate bedroom black metal outfit and interrupts the song just when it's got going). Like BMD this too has a gothic, synthpop track, Losing Tomorrow, that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of the material on the album as if the band felt we needed a respite for some reason.
Sure, it's not a terrible record by any means and maybe I'm being a bit harsh in some kind of unjustifiably knee-jerk way, but even after revisiting the album for the clan challenge I still stick by my original opinion that this is an overrated release.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1997
Towering monolithic slabs of titanic sonic devastation, set to lay waste to all that dare turn their ears towards them. OK, maybe that's overstating it a little, but this is serious sludge / doom that's really not for the faint-hearted (two of the three tracks are over 20 minutes long). Brilliant cover too from Mariusz Lewandowski who did the artwork for Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper.
Genres: Doom Metal Sludge Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2018
Pulverizing death doom with vocals courtesy of an eviscerated abyss-dwelling demon. It chugs and crawls, chewing up everything in it's path and leaving behind a nightmarish, barren landscape where dreams once dwelled.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
It's hard to believe that a band who are now into their fourth decade can sound as vital as this. Their uncompromising death metal grabs it's listeners by the throat and shakes them unmercifully like a savage beast. This downtuned, throbbing, pulverising sound is impossible to resist for any fan of old-school death metal and is testament to a band who care not what anyone thinks of them.
Genres: Death Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
A couple of tracks and fourteen minutes of thundering sludgy doom metal make up this debut ep from Vancouver's Seer. A good calling card and indicator of later releases.
Genres: Doom Metal Sludge Metal
Format: EP
Year: 2015
This EP has been released as bonus tracks on later versions of Brave Murder Day and if you were unaware that they were originally released separately then you would almost certainly think they were part of the original album, being virtually the same in style and execution. Luckily, this is a very good thing and is consequently the band's last great hurrah.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: EP
Year: 1997
I must admit to having a troubled relationship with Sweden's Katatonia as they don't always "click" with me, albums such as Last Fair Deal Gone Down leaving me cold. However, this is a whole different animal altogether and, for me, Katatonia's best - a situation vastly improved by the addition of Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt who's harsh vocals are second to none, for my money.
Kicking off with the ten-minute titan, Brave, a heaving death doom monster, Brave Murder Day is mostly comprised of uptempo death doom, Akerfeldt's growling, yet morbid vocals, fantastic, memorable riffs and soaring lead work. Slightly different in structure is 12, a song with a bit more of a progressive feel to it with changes in tone and texture throughout it's eight minute running time.
The real cuckoo in the nest of the album is obviously third track, Day, who's synthpop sensibilities stand out like a sore thumb (I have no problem with synthpop at all, but this song jars here).
Overall a strong example of second-wave death doom from a band who ultimately would feel the need to turn their back on the style and strike out for pastures new, consequently never really being this good again.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1996
Blood Ceremony have beem one of my favourite bands since 2008 and the release of their eponymous debut, a record that arguably helped springboard the current (possibly overdone) trend of female-fronted occult and psych doom metal. This, the follow up to that terrific debut, kicks off in suitably occult style, with it's paeon to Pan the god of nature, being dominated by a soaring Hammond Organ.
The doom metal aspects of Blood Ceremony do play second fiddle to the more psychedelic, wiccan aspects of their sound, but I maintain that they still have enough of a presence to consider this a metal record, especially My Demon Brother and Oliver Haddo. Personally I have no problem with the more psychedelic leanings of the band, being a bit of an old psych-head myself, I like to hear a good, heavy slab of old-fashioned occult psychedelia with some Hammer movies-style demons and witches imagery thrown in for good measure. It must also be said that Alia O'Brien is a great musician, her vocals, keyboards and particularly her flute playing are distinctive and add a dimension to the music that others in this field lack.
Whilst I acknowledge that many of the metal fraternity are unwilling to claim BC as one of their own especially since the releases aftere this are definitely a lot more psych rock than metal, I've got to say that it's their loss as they're turning their back on a great band.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2011
Glacially slowly paced, yet still recognizedly death doom metal. It rumbles and growls, at times almost on the edge of perception, at others it threatens to overwhelm, yet all the while hinting at a vastness and unknowable darkness waiting to consume us all. Imagine taking Winter's Into Darkness and slowing it down to about a third of the speed and you have an approximation of how this album sounds.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
The album is based around the concept of an alien civilization that believes it must bring the universe back to it's primordial chaos. This civilization has a zealous need to destroy everything in order to achieve it's religious aim, believing that they are in their "Eighth Crusade". The concept also encompasses the other races' fruitless attempts to oppose these maniacal zealots. The band have compared this civilization's irresistible crusade against all life as analogous to our current climate crisis and the helplessness felt by individuals in the face of it.
The album's eight tracks are, cryptically, split into four instrumentals of four minutes duration each and four tracks with vocals lasting eight minutes each. The band have virtually abandoned the funeral doom of their early works at this point with the focus more on a progressive death doom sound that is reminiscent of classic-era Opeth (especially on third track, Dissonant Occurence, which is somewhat of a departure for the band).
The two parts of instrumental Ignite the Heavens at the heart of the album are where the band really lose their shit and go all out, illustrating the unstoppable might of the psychotic aliens, with wailing jazz-like sax, flute, cello and martial rhythms. The Great Debacle that follows this two-part instrumental is probably closest to early Monolithe in tone, with huge riffs and growling, menacing vocals, although it does feature a guitar solo from guest Victor Gnôle of Ethmebb that is more histrionic than Monolithe's usual style. This track and the ensuing Disrupted Firmament with it's effects-heavy clean vocals provide the climax to the album's concept as the defeated civilizations reflect on their fate and accept annihilation. Ending with part two of the opening instrumental, the loop is closed and, presumably the seeds for the Ninth Crusade are sown.
I love a good concept album and, for my money, this is a great one with terrific music and lyrics and a concept to rival space opera classics like the Expanse and Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth sagas.
Genres: Doom Metal
Format: Album
Year: 2019
Rainbow may not be the first name that comes to mind when discussing 70s metal but I believe Rising cetainly stands as one of the best metal albums of the decade. Let's face it, how can any album that features Ronnie James Dio not be considered metal, the guys a metal legend and, in my opinion, this is also Ritchie Blackmore's finest hour, even eclipsing his work with Deep Purple. Side one features four anthemic numbers including the classic Starstruck and great opener Tarot Woman, but the album really shifts up a gear on side two that features only two tracks, the epic Stargazer and my personal favourite A Light in the Black. Stargazer is an early precursor of epic doom, with it's tale of a megalomaniac sorcerer compelling slaves to build a tower to the heavens and is probably stolen by Dio's amazing vocal performance, but Blackmore holds his own with some great soloing. However, Ritchie really lays it out on Light in the Black, with a fast and frenetic performance that helped influence countless thousands of metal "shredders" for decades to come. Finally, I have to tip a nod to Cozy Powell's thunderous contribution, hammering his drum kit into submission in a way few could ever replicate. Rainbow went into a steep, terminal decline after this record, mainly due to Blackmore's desire to emulate David Coverdale and score Top Ten hits in the US, but this stands as a fitting monument to a short-lived partnership of amazingly talented musicians at the top of their game.
Genres: Heavy Metal
Format: Album
Year: 1976