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Heavy Metal Thunder Doom Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Doom Metal

Doom Metal

The slowest and heaviest thing metal does. Descended straight from the first Black Sabbath record, and in no hurry whatsoever.

Active years
1969 – present
Origin
UK / USA
Family
Doom Metal
Bands here
15

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Epicus Doomicus Metallicus Candlemass, 1986 The landmark

    The record that named doom metal in its title and then defined it. Leif Edling writes riffs like funeral marches and Johan Längqvist sings in a full operatic tenor, which nobody else in 1986 was doing.

    Listen to Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

  2. Psalm 9 Trouble, 1984

    Doom with the tempo up and the gloom intact. The most straightforwardly enjoyable record in the genre.

    Listen to Psalm 9

  3. Born Too Late Saint Vitus, 1986

    The title says it. Slow, bitter, and played by people who knew perfectly well they were out of step with 1986.

    Listen to Born Too Late

  4. Relentless Pentagram, 1985

    Released in 1985 as a self-titled album and retitled Relentless for the 1993 CD reissue, which is how everybody knows it. Songs written in the early seventies by a band who kept falling apart and did not record them for a decade. It sounds like it, and that is the appeal.

    Listen to Relentless

What it sounds like

Slow. Not mid-paced — genuinely slow, at tempos where you can hear each note decay before the next arrives. The guitars are thick and heavily distorted, tuned down and played in the low registers, and the riffs repeat long enough to become hypnotic. Most doom vocalists sing cleanly and often operatically, which is why it can sound almost stately rather than brutal. The mood is dread rather than anger. It is the one metal genre where space and silence are used deliberately, and where the weight comes from what the band chooses not to play. Everything traces back to the first two minutes of Black Sabbath's debut, and the genre has never really wanted to escape that.

  • Heaviness 5 out of 5
  • Speed 1 out of 5
  • Aggression 3 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 4 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

Named for the pervasive feeling of dread and impending doom the music evokes — a mood inherited directly from Black Sabbath's self-titled 1970 track, whose opening tritone riff (the diabolus in musica, long associated with evil in classical theory) set the template for the entire genre.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Black Sabbath UK
  • Candlemass Sweden
  • Saint Vitus USA
  • Pentagram USA
  • Trouble USA

And 10 more

  • Pagan Altar UK
  • Count Raven Sweden
  • The Obsessed USA
  • Reverend Bizarre Finland
  • Paul Chain Italy
  • Solitude Aeturnus USA
  • Solstice UK
  • Mael Mórdha Ireland
  • Lucifer Sweden
  • Ha Lela Lithuania

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

What it led to

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.