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Doom Metal
Stylistic origins:	Heavy metal (mainly early Black Sabbath albums) Psychedelic rock
Cultural origins:	mid-1980s, Europe
Typical instruments:	Guitar - Bass - Drums - Synthesizer
Mainstream popularity:	Cult following in the late 20th century, some bands gaining popularity in the 2000s
Derivative forms:	Gothic metal Stoner metal Sludge metal Post-metal
Subgenres
Traditional doom, Stoner doom, Epic doom
Fusion genres
Sludge doom, Death/Doom, Funeral Doom, Drone doom, Black/Doom, Avantgarde doom
Regional scenes
United Kingdom, United States, Finland, Sweden

Doom metal is a form of heavy metal that emerged as a recognized metal sub-genre in the early/mid-1980s^[1]. Doom metal is heavier and slower than other metal genres. Lyrics play a very important role in this genre, and are traditionally rife with pessimism, evoking an atmosphere of darkness, despair and misery. Musically, doom metal is strongly influenced by the early work of Black Sabbath. A number of early Black Sabbath tracks, such as "Black Sabbath" are considered embryonic or prototypical doom metal songs^[2]. Many of the tracks on their third album Master of Reality (released in 1971) seem to have more in common with what today is seen as doom metal, with tracks such as "Sweet Leaf", and "Into The Void" that featured Tony Iommi's guitar and Geezer Butler's bass tuned down to C# for heavier riffing and reduced string tension for Iommi's previously injured fingers. However Black Sabbath was not the only influence- many doom metal bands started up only a few years after Black Sabbath's debut, some of whom hailed from countries that had not yet seen the rise of Black Sabbath's popularity.

Contents 1 History of doom metal 2 Doom and other styles, crossover 3 Genre misconceptions 4 Instrumentation 5 Lyrical themes 6 Stylistic divisions within doom metal[4] 6.1 Traditional doom 6.2 Epic doom 6.3 Stoner doom 7 Crossover styles 7.1 Sludge doom 7.2 Death/doom 7.3 Funeral doom 7.4 Drone doom 7.5 Black/doom 7.6 Avant-garde Doom 8 List of bands 9 See also 10 Notes and references 11 External links

Doom metal is among the oldest forms of heavy metal, rooted in the music of early Black Sabbath, who are one of the first heavy metal bands. Their music is rooted in blues, but with the specific loud guitar playing of Iommi, and the then-uncommon dark and pessimistic lyrics and atmosphere, they set the standards of early heavy metal and inspired various doom metal bands. In the early 1970s both Black Sabbath and the American band Pentagram composed and performed this heavy and dark music, which would in the 1980s begin to be known and referred to as doom metal by subsequent musicians^[3], critics and fans. From the late 1970s to mid 1980s, bands such as Trouble, Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Pentagram and Witchfinder General contributed much to the formation of doom metal as a distinct genre. Some US acts such as Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road also influenced the rise of the style, especially its epic side which Candlemass defined on their classic, debut album Epicus Doomicus Metallicus.

During the 1980s, doom metal was deeply underground and gathered only small circles of cult-following fans. In the 1980s, metal was dominated by speed and thrash metal, and in many commercial areas by glam and "stadium-anthem" pseudo-metal bands. Slower, heavier and pessimistic in its nature, doom metal bands didn't receive much attention even among some die-hard metal fans of that time. Bands such as Trouble established the use of Christian imagery and themes in the lyrical side of doom metal which led these bands to be misinterpreted and alienated amongst some metalheads. It should be noted that although Trouble were Christian, many of the later doom bands weren't. However, many of them, such as Candlemass or Saint Vitus, still embraced elements of Christian imagery, not as a religious viewpoint, but as a lyrical symbolism for themes they deal with in their lyrics such as pain and suffering. Doom metal remained more or less underground at this point.

Doom metal developed further in the early 1990s. The most influential doom metal band from the early 1990s to the present was Cathedral (a band led by ex Napalm Death singer Lee Dorrian). Their debut album Forest of Equilibrium (1991) was rooted in traditional doom, yet opened the door for the incorporation of elements from other genres. Besides Cathedral, a whole wave of influential doom bands followed during the early 1990s including Solitude Aeturnus, Count Raven, The Obsessed, Penance, Sleep, Revelation, Confessor, etc. Underground labels who most supported the scene in these years were Germany's Hellhound Records and Rise Above (owned by Lee Dorrian).

From the late 1990s to the present, another wave of traditional-based doom metal has emerged, mostly due to the success of bands such as the British Electric Wizard, and the Finnish Reverend Bizarre. Other bands include Orodruin, The Gates of Slumber, While Heaven Wept, Warning, Solstice, Mirror of Deception, etc.

Cathedral's debut album, Forest of Equilibrium, was very important in the development of doom metal, helping to expand its sound by incorporating elements of other genres. There soon followed a large number of bands who crossed doom with other styles. A few of these bands gained more popularity than classic doom metal bands.

A few death metal bands crossed the doom metal border by slowing down their playing style, including Sorrow and early Paradise Lost. A number of bands began to combine the doom metal style with influences from death metal, other forms of extreme metal, and even hardcore. The first band who mixed doom with death metal may have been Winter, although this style, known as death/doom, later became associated with and made popular within the wider metal scene by three British bands: Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema.

Although classic doom metal and death/doom have remained central, during the 1990s the doom metal genre cross pollinated with other styles. In the early 1990s European bands such as Thergothon and Funeral moved death/doom to the extreme. With a much slower interpretation of death/doom, their music took on a new dimension similar to the ethereal atmosphere of dark ambient music. This utterly slow and often very dark style is now known as funeral doom. At the same time, American bands like Crowbar and Eyehategod mixed doom metal with significant hardcore and even punk influences, forming another new faction within the doom metal scene: sludge doom. It should be noted that 80s band The Melvins made a huge impact on the above mentioned sludge doom bands. Also, the band Earth pioneered drone doom, the slowest and the most psychedelic form of doom.

That experimentation continued, and today there are many bands who mix their basic doom metal sound with various styles like ambient, avantgarde, death metal, black metal, post-rock, folk, progressive metal, progressive rock, crust punk and even industrial and jazz.

Today, the original brand of doom metal with melodic vocals is usually labeled "traditional doom".

Doom metal encompasses a vast variety of sounds. The mixing of styles during the 1990s often led to confusion in the media, who mistakingly labeled some gothic metal, melodic death metal, stoner rock and even grunge bands as doom. Some fans of traditional doom reject some hybrid doom styles like funeral doom, questioning whether they're doom at all.

A number of bands, such as The Gathering and Theatre of Tragedy took the mellower side of Paradise Lost, and began to experiment with female vocals and keyboards, creating the generally more accessible genre gothic metal (specifically, so-called "beauty-and-the-beast" metal). Although this genre is generally considered to be inspired by some death/doom metal bands, it is not considered a doom subgenre.

It has also been argued that a nexus exists between doom metal and stoner rock although each of these genres have developed on their own. The stoner rock bands like Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Mondo Generator and Queens of the Stone Age share with doom metal a heavy sound and a strong Black Sabbath influence, but generally have a different objective: whereas doom metal aims for dark and moody themes/atmosphere, stoner rock aims for a more spaced-out, psychedelic sound. A number of doom metal bands, however, such as Cathedral, Celestial Season and Sleep, have combined doom metal with psychedelic influences, thereby creating a style which some consider a hybrid of doom metal and psychedelic rock.

Guitars, bass guitars and drums are the most common instruments used to play Doom Metal. Heavy, down-tuned guitar riffing is considered an important feature within almost all of its sub-genres. Some doom metal uses keyboards occasionally. Traditional doom metal bands tend to prefer clean vocals, often patterned off Ozzy Osbourne's on early Black Sabbath recordings or operatic vocals, like Candlemass' former singer Messiah Marcolin or Solitude Aeturnus' Robert Lowe. Doom bands with extreme metal influences tend to favor the growls, shrieks, and screams common in death metal, black metal, and thrash metal. Some sludge bands incorporate the harsh strained vocal style commonly found in hardcore and crust. Fast tempos are relatively rare; slow tempos are one of the defining technical characteristics of doom metal. However, some bands make use of faster drum beats--including occasional blast beats. diSEMBOWELMENT often uses this technique, incorporating brutal death metal in their approach to doom metal. A number of doom metal bands, such as My Dying Bride or Funeral, have made use of violins in their music. Despite the outliers, doom metal remains a guitar-oriented genre of heavy music.

Lyrics in doom metal play a very important role, often accentuating its moody and dark atmosphere or creating an ever-present epic feel. In general, lyrics by doom metal bands mostly present a pessimistic view of the world and life, but the approach depends and varies from one band to another. Usually, lyrical themes deal with despair, loss, depression, death, paranoia, anger, melancholy and various other negative aspects. Many bands such as Saint Vitus, Penance or Anathema for example often wrote lyrics in quite introspective, personal ways, while many others such as, Candlemass, Morgion or Esoteric prefer abstract, mythological, religious and/or fantasy symbolism. Various bands from Pentagram to Thergothon and others took some inspiration from horror literature or movies.

Religious themes are very common in doom metal. Bands as Trouble incorporated Christian imagery in doom metal which will be accepted by most of traditional acts, not as a belief, but for aesthetic and symbolic purposes. Individualism is often a main point in lyrics of doom bands rather than belief, so many of them also share interests for the occult and mysticism and use them aesthetically.

As for early Black Sabbath, political themes were always present in the genre, but Swedish traditional doom act Count Raven was one of the first doom bands which wrote social lyrics about war, corruption and injustice in an explicit way. Political and social themes are most present in sludge/doom bands because of their roots or influences from the hardcore/punk scene. Some other bands with social related lyrics outside of traditional and sludge/doom include early death/doom band Winter, while later death/doom bands mostly followed the romantic, poetic-styled direction set by bands like early My Dying Bride and Anathema.

Also, various bands such as Witchfinder General, Cathedral or Reverend Bizarre often wrote lyrics with a sense of humor and irony. Many doom bands took inspiration from experiences with drugs such as Electric Wizard or Esoteric - a similar approach to stoner rock bands, but with an important difference - without a "feelgood" connotation prevalent in stoner rock, but with a dark, paranoid and apocalyptic feel.

Traditional doom is doom metal in its purest, non-crossover form. It is mostly slow, riff-based "downer" metal which was influenced by early Black Sabbath. Typical examples include Pentagram, Saint Vitus, Trouble and Candlemass. Four "waves" have so far been recognised in the history of traditional doom: the first one started with the originators of the entire genre, the proto-doom bands Black Sabbath and Pentagram; the second one dates from the mid-1980s, especially in the work of Saint Vitus and Candlemass; the third one started with the success of Cathedral's debut album Forest of Equilibrium; and the fourth has been affiliated with Reverend Bizarre.

Epic doom is often used as a description for traditional doom bands with a stronger medieval and/or fantasy influences in lyrics. It is quite common that these bands present a more progressive style. Also, vocals have a much more narrative, epic, or even theatrical presence. Epic doom traces its roots through more traditional metal such as Manowar and Iron Maiden in addition to emulating the concepts of pre-doom bands such as Black Sabbath. Some of today's most popular doom metal bands with this epic feel are veterans Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus.

Stoner doom is very close to (or sometimes is) traditional doom, but with a more psychedelic edge. Stoner doom traces its roots in the psychedelic side of early Black Sabbath. Typical examples: (mid) Cathedral, Sleep, High on Fire and YOB. A significant borderline case is Electric Wizard, whose music can be sometimes seen as a mixture of traditional doom and stoner doom with clear tendencies towards sludge doom. For few bands as UK's Acrimony or California's Goatsnake is actually seen as a hybrid form of doom metal and stoner rock.

Main article: Sludge metal

Sludge/doom is mix between hardcore and doom metal. Sometimes called "doomcore", it's actually a doom metal with roots in hardcore instead of traditional heavy metal. Combining the slow riffing and depressive outlook of doom metal with the raw abrasiveness and shrieked vocals of hardcore, sludge is at some of the outer limits of doom metal, although a couple of bands such as Eyehategod and Crowbar are fairly well known within the metal community, especially in the New Orleans sludge scene from which they came. Even though first sludge bands sport the "booze 'n' bongs" image synonymous with stoner rock, they lacked the stoner rockers' positive outlook on life. Lyrical themes are typically centered around misery, hatred and nihilism, but also social and political issues owing to its hardcore roots. Some examples are Eyehategod, Grief, Anticlimax, Corrupted and Crowbar.

Main article: Death/Doom

A mixture of doom metal mixed with elements of death metal, most notably guttural vocals. Typical examples: Winter, diSEMBOWELMENT, early Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, early Anathema, Novembers Doom, Mourning Beloveth, Draconian, Swallow the Sun and Runemagick. This style emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Main article: Funeral doom

Funeral doom is a style that takes the slowness of doom metal to further extremes, and that puts a strong emphasis on an atmosphere of despair and emptiness. The style can be seen as a departure from death/doom, slowing down the music even further, and frequently incorporating influences from ambient music, creating a sound which is distorted and gloomy, but often dreamy at the same time. Vocals are usually growled, but are often much less in the foreground than in other styles of music, and are rather used to provide an additional texture to the music. The style was originally pioneered by Thergothon,^[5] and later also by Skepticism, and Funeral; modern examples include Shape Of Despair, Celestiial, Mournful Congregation, Asunder, Remembrance, Nortt and Germany's Ahab.

Main article: Drone doom

Also known as drone metal, drone doom is a genre which is even more repetitive and inaccessible than funeral doom, but not entirely minimalistic. Generally influenced by noise and ambient music, the music often mainly consists of distorted downtuned guitars and bass, usually with lots of reverb applied to the final mix, with clear themes being a rarity. If vocals are present they are often "sung" in a screaming manner (such as Khanate). Drone doom tracks are generally long, with typical lasting between ten and thirty minutes; some drone doom releases even consist of only one album-long track, an example of this being Sun Baked Snow Cave, a collaboration between Boris and Merzbow which clocks in at 62 minutes. Vocals and even drums are often absent, and the music often lacks any beat or rhythm in the traditional sense. Like funeral doom, drone doom typically emphasizes despair and emptiness, abstract and apocalyptic and cryptic themes are also common. Heavily influenced by Earth, Stephen O'Malley can be largely credited for the rise of drone doom as a recognised subgenre, being or having been involved with seminal acts such as Burning Witch, Khanate and Sunn O))). Sunn O))), Boris and predecessor Earth can be considered the most influential bands in the genre. Other notable acts include Nadja, Black Boned Angel, and Torture Wheel.

Black/doom is a combination of elements from black metal and doom metal. As in funeral doom, the lyrical themes often deal with nature, melancholy, sadness or depression. The music is characterized by the use of high-pitched screams, distorted doom or black metal guitar riffs and clean guitar riffs. The most typical bands associated with this genre are Tiamat, Dolorian, Barathrum and (contestably) early Katatonia. Pure Black/doom bands are fairly rare, but bands such as Forgotten Tomb, Ghast, Nortt and Bethlehem, are also considered Black/Doom due to common lyrical and atmospheric elements, in spite of their prevalent black metal side.

Avant-garde doom is a division of undefinable, atypical and unique doom metal bands with slightly artistic touches. Examples are Esoteric and Unholy. Avant-garde doom also include some avant-garde metal bands which are not strictly doom metal by any means, but with many connections and/or influences from/to doom metal: In the Woods... (with their album Omnio), Aarni, Neurosis, Cult Of Luna, Spider Kitten, Jesu.

Main article: list of doom metal bands

• Stoner metal
• Gothic metal
• List of heavy metal genres

• Doom-metal.com
• Doom metal at All Music Guide

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