Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time Special Issue by Red Flag Media

SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

PRESENTS

bonus ^

cathedral The Ethereal Mirror

E XT R E M E LY E XT R E M E  D EC I B E L M AG A Z I N E .C O M

www.decibelmagazine.com

EXTREMELY EXTREME

The Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Albert Mudrian

MANAGING EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

alex@redflagmedia.com albert@redflagmedia.com

Andrew Bonazelli

andrew@redflagmedia.com

Bruno Guerreiro

bruno@decibelmagazine.com CONTROLLER

Nicole Jarman nicole@redflagmedia.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Patty Moran patty@redflagmedia.com

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Chuck BB, Mark Rudolph

ADVERTISING

Albert Mudrian

albert@redflagmedia.com

540.878.5756 UNDERTONES SECTION

Drew Juergens

drew@decibelmagazine.com

Online

just words from the editor

DECIBLOG EDITOR

Andrew Bonazelli

ONLINE ADVERTISING

Ben Umanov

andrew@redflagmedia.com

ben@blastbeatnetwork.com

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Anthony Bartkewicz Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Shawn Bosler Brent Burton Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner John Darnielle Jerry A. Deathburger Chris Dick Sean Frasier Jeanne Fury Nick Green Joe Gross Jason Heller Jonathan Horsley Scott Koerber Daniel Lake Frank Lemke Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Kirk Miller Justin M. Norton Matt Olivo Etan Rosenbloom Kevin Sharp Rod Smith Zach Smith Kevin Stewart-Panko Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel Jeff Wagner CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

During Decibel’s first decade, we’ve assembled over 20 lists ranking albums, songs and even riffs based on subgenre or year of release, and I can assure you that the Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time list was the most difficult task. (Note to self: rank all of Decibel’s album/song/riff lists for next year’s Decibel’s Top Decibel Lists of All Time Special Collector’s Issue.) For a form of music with such an inarguable origin point (see page 46) and seemingly restricted, unflappable musical tenets (be slow, be solemn), you’d think there would be little room for development or expansion. But look closely at the following 100 shapes of despair and tell me what the soaring sounds of Pallbearer or While Heaven Wept have to do with the crushing bleakness of Thergothon’s one-and-done funereal landmark Stream From the Heavens. Furthermore, what exactly does Cathedral’s now Hall of Fame-inducted boogie-fest The Ethereal Mirror have in common with My Dying Bride’s avant-goth (and fellow HOF-er) touchstone Turn Loose the Swans? OK, probably those first six Sabbath LPs (spoiler alert: all are featured in this list), but that’s a ton of sonic ground mined over 40+ years. Clearly the influences of punk, death metal, black metal, shoegaze and even indie rock have proven that you can bring more than a left-handed SG to the show and still produce the most vital and vile doom metal on the planet. Of course, it also makes comparing the output against disparate subgenres challenging for magazine nerds like us, but incredibly rewarding listening for readers—okay, fellow nerds—like you. So, what is this that stands before you? Surprisingly, it’s the most diverse subgenre in extreme metal. Now doom on, or be doomed.

MAIN OFFICE

1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107 Tel: 215.625.9850 / Fax: 215.625.9967 www.decibelmagazine.com

Shimon Karmel Scott Kinkade Ester Segarra Josh Sisk Gene Smirnov Frank White

RECORD STORES

To carry Decibel, call 1.215.625.9850 x105 DECIBEL SUBSCRIPTIONS

Decibel subscriber service/change of address: 215.625.9850 x105 or contact@decibelmagazine.com To order by mail: Consult the subscription page To order by phone: 215.625.9850 x105 To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com VISA/MASTERCARD/DISCOVER accepted Subscribers: please alert us of any change of address 6-8 weeks before the date of your move. Decibel is not responsible or obligated to re-ship issues missed because of a move we were not informed of 6-8 weeks before the move took place. DECIBEL BACK ISSUES/MERCHANDISE

To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials.

albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright ©2014 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PRINTED IN USA

ISSN 1557-2137

USPS 023142

PRESENTS

ther than pretty much anything Tony Foresta does, it’s hard to think of extreme music I seek out when I’m in a good mood. Which has always been the point, right? This is outsider music, and no matter how many ironically jiggling ass-cheeks Mastodon cram into their videos, it always will be. Doom takes it to another level, though. It is a subgenre that mirrors our suffering upon stupidly inviting the vampires of sorrow or depression inside. Ambition, confidence and self-respect drain in unbearable slow-motion, leaving us paralyzed, shouldered with an immovable, abstract heaviness that makes it impossible to fight back, to give a fuck. The music represented herein truly is the soundtrack to our lives, people. We may not always have each other when we’re most in need, but we do have Thergothon, While Heaven Wept, Shape of Despair, Esoteric and–perhaps the most perfect moniker of all–Grief. OR maybe we just want to blaze up (Sleep), dance around like a weirdo (Cathedral), pop in a fucked-up VHS (Electric Wizard), pass out and dream about motorcycling across the desert (Kyuss) with a hot goth chick (Type O Negative). Either way, got no religion or friends? This list is all you want–don’t need to pretend. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

MY TOP 5 DANIEL

DROSTE Ahab

100 ahab

The Call of the Wretched Sea Na pa l m (2 0 0 6 )

The ocean is goddamn terrifying— it covers more than 70 percent of the planet, yet 95 percent of it remains uncharted. Judging by those numbers, it seems likely that there’s a hideous beast hiding somewhere in its depths right now, waiting for the perfect moment to rise from its watery tomb and crush humanity under its reeking tentacles. And when it does, The Call of the Wretched Sea will be the soundtrack. Ahab may not have intended to create a new subgenre (nautical funeral

doom, if you’re keeping track) when they released their debut LP in 2006, but by combining the awesome power and glacial pace of funeral doom with watery keyboards, cavernous production and MobyDick-inspired lyrics, they essentially did just that. Songs like “Below the Sun” and “The Sermon” crush like the atmospheric

Anathema, Pentecost III Anathema, The Silent Enigma diSEMBOWELMENT, Transcendence Into the Peripheral Warning, Watching From a Distance Jex Thoth, Blood Moon Rise

pressure in the Mariana Trench. Daniel Droste’s eerie, reverb-drenched guitar melodies swirl on top of Pequod-sized riffs. The entire album sounds like you’re being dragged to the bottom of the ocean by a gargantuan monster from beyond the stars. Listen inside a diving bell for maximum effect. —MATT SOLIS

hooded menace Never Cross the Dead P r o f o u n d L o r e (2 0 1 0 )

y now, Hooded Menace are a perfectly acceptable favorite band. They’re even tattoo-worthy—if you’ve already got enough of them. But in 2010, having transitioned from the niche-oriented Razorback to the utopian Profound Lore, Hooded Menace dropped an album so heavy, so catchy, so death metal, that the Finns beneath the hoods mattered less than the songs they had crafted. This is important because too many bands these days are more interesting as entities than as generators of good metal. Consider when we first heard Fulfill the Curse: None of us could believe

a band as astute as Hooded Menace could exist. These Finnish dudes were taking Electric Wizard riffs, playing them like Rippikoulu’s doomy stuff, growling like Åkerfeldt’s “flesh” echoes on “So You Die,” all in the name of Ossorio’s Blind Dead series. But then who expected Never Cross the Dead, their follow-up, to be as good, if not better? I wouldn’t call the production clean, but there isn’t a note, hit or gurgle that doesn’t lop your head right off, again and again, like some hellishly wonderful torment. With NCTD, Hooded Menace proved themselves to be a truly formidable band. A band worthy of being your favorite. —DUTCH PEARCE

penance

Parallel Corners Cen t u r y Med i a (1994 )

iron man Black Night

H e l l ho u n d (1 9 9 3 )

The early ’90s weren’t a particularly friendly time for traditional doom metal. Black Sabbath dropped the upper-decker turd Forbidden in 1995, and smartly decided to get the original lineup together. Stalwarts like Electric Wizard were still in their embryonic cells. Sleep were signed to a major, but alienated their label with a single hourlong song (read elsewhere in this special). Look deeper, though, and you’ll find that outright Sabbath worship was a thing long before bands like Orchid and Kadavar existed and Iommi was an honorary university professor. Iron Man started out as a Sab tribute band before writing their own songs. The band, still active in 2014, is from Gaithersburg, MD, otherwise known as Bobby Liebling’s hometown. The overlooked underground album Black Night—reissued several times in recent years—is filled with strong material that cribs Sabbath sounds from several eras: Iommi riffing from Master of Reality; keyboard fills from Technical Ecstasy and the swing of certain Vol. 4 tracks. There are times when the riffs stray so close to the originals that you feel like you’re listening to an instrumental track. But when the band you’re imitating is Black Sabbath, is this really a problem? —JUSTIN M. NORTON

Penance is essential American doom metal, but don’t take our word for it— take Lee Dorrian’s. If you’ve ever seen the first batch of promo photos Cathedral shot back in 1991, you’ll remember Dorrian sporting a Penance shirt. If you know the back story on Cathedral’s legendary Forest of Equilibrium, you’ll know that Cathedral snagged Penance drumhape of Despair had mer Mike Smail for percussion duties on been making funeral those recordings. First album released doom for half-decadeon Dorrian’s Rise Above label? Penance. Support band Cathedral took on the road plus (as Raven before for their 1993 tour with Sleep? Penance. becoming themselves in ’98) Starting to get the picture? when, for their second album, Formed from the ashes of Pittsthe Finnish quintet turned burgh’s doom/thrash juggernaut their collective back on convenDream Death, Penance’s sophomore tion to delve deep into a new album, Parallel Corners, helped stoke the way of representing the allflames of traditional pervasive sadness and lack of MY TOP 5 doom during a time Spinef a rm (2001) motivation that invariably MIKE when everyone else grips the newly dead. While seemed hypnotized by their use of keyboards, strings, classically-influenced melodies the heavy sway of the Penance/ and the like definitely factor into in Angels of Distress’s majestideath/doom sound. Dream Death/ Parallel Corners was cally chilling effect (lovers and haters alike still claim it’s one of ex-Cathedral Cathedral’s Ethereal the most depressing albums, ever), no single component of the Trouble, Mirror minus the bell band’s exploded palette would have carried nearly as much weight Trouble/ bottoms and the psyTrouble, if not for both the expansiveness of the their vision and capacity chedelic foo-fooery: The Skull for realizing said vision with disastrous success. tons of thunder and Pentagram, Few releases in extreme music can match the album for sheer groove, and the occaPentagram sional Dorrian-esque vastness—fewer still in incomparable coldness. Much of the latRevelation, “Oh YEAHHH!” ter comes via vocalists Natalie and Pasi Koskinen (ex-Amorphis), Never Comes counterbalanced by who play off each other so well that the latter’s sublimely alien Silence sluggish monuments growls end up injecting a measure of dignity and vulnerability— like “Visions” and Candlemass, even humanity—to the five-track masterpiece’s cinematic sweep Epicus the rerecorded demo Doomicus every bit as much as the former’s angelic intonations help keep it track “Born to Suffer.” Metallicus

shape of despair Angels of Distress

SMAIL

rooted in the void. —ROD SMITH

Witchfinder General, Death Penalty

—SCOTT KOERBER

thorr’s hammer Dommedagsnatt EP Mo ri b u n d (1 9 9 6 )

Almost 20 years on, the standout element in the short history of Seattle’s Thorr’s Hammer continues to be the vocal performance of then-17-year-old/ then-exchange student and Norway native, Runhild Gammelsæter (the band split when school was up, and

she returned to Oslo). Coming from the slow-and-heavy-builds-the-space school as propagated by Winter, diSEMBOWELMENT and Mindrot, Thorr’s Hammer incorporated impressively thick and massive guitar sounds alongside some delightfully painful thundersticking by Jamie Sykes, including his tasteful use of double bass to approximate the sound of angry Viking gods hoofing it over the horizon, or meteorites pelting the side of Mt. Rainier, or whatever. But it was Gammelsæter’s menacing bellow that stole the show. Not only because she was a pale, blonde, angelic-looking teen who belied her appearance, gender and facial hair-growing abilities with terrifying amounts of diaphragm abuse— more that her voice was a rallying point for any and all wondering about the powers of bellowing as a perpetual motion machine, even when the music underneath sounds more at ease deliberately applying a world-fucking, distorted emergency brake.

the gathering Mandylion

Cen t u r y Med i a ( 19 9 5)

Of all metal subgenres, doom is the most stylistically rigid. Its boundaries are cut and dried, with very little room for much expansion, and is so firmly rooted in tradition that any idea of innovation or expansion is a tall, tall order. The Gathering were a decent young Dutch doom band in 1994, with

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

a pair of albums under their belt, but it was clear they were not going to make a lasting impression with the singer they had. For album number three, they thought completely outside the box, bringing in a fresh-faced, 21-year-old dynamo named Anneke van Giersbergen, and the resulting Mandylion not only revitalized doom, but revolutionized it as well. What van Giersbergen brings to Mandylion is so simple, too. It’s Dynamics 101—in this case, the contrast between light and dark. The band’s arrangements—a gracefully gloomy blend of the more melancholy side of doom, pioneered by Paradise Lost, and elements of the gothic influence that was creeping into metal at the time—are sumptuous in their haunting beauty. When van Giersbergen appears, though, with a voice projecting warmth and whimsy on classics like “Strange Machines” and “Leaves,” it’s a knockout punch, where dour minor key melodies commingle with musings on Cleopatra and Chaka Khan. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

crowbar Odd Fellows Rest M ayhe m / F i e r c e (1 9 9 8 )

ouisiana volume dealers Crowbar hogged up all the heavy on fifth full-length Odd Fellows Rest, so sonically and cerebrally soulcrushing it’s almost unfair. Arguably the crowning achievement of their entire catalog of slow-roasted grandiosity—due at least in part to the pedigree and communicable chemistry among its members—Odd Fellows Rest finds founding guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein waging his signature riff war alongside guitarist Sammy Duet, bassist Todd “Godcreep” Strange and drummer Jimmy Bower (a.k.a. “Wicked Cricket”). It’s of little surprise then that the 12-track behemoth hits like a bag full of anvils from the very onset of its overcast, harmonized intro, the

brooding, syrupy builds and epic climaxes of highlights “Planets Collide” and “Scattered Pieces Lay” worth the cost of admission alone. Fluctuating seamlessly between pensive and punishing, Windstein and Duet’s riff incursions punch holes through the sky, as the entire 54-minute duration bleeds a pained, soulful swagger seemingly extracted from their New Orleans stomping grounds. It’s all punctuated by Windstein’s gruff roar, his words literally aching with wisdom, suffering and sorrow. The record concludes ouroboros-style, with the final toll of “On Frozen Ground” surging back into its ceremonial opening. Truly none fucking heavier. —LIZ CIAVARELLA-BRENNER

92 grief

pallbearer

Sorrow and Extinction Prof ound Lore (2012)

It’s no secret that the music climate has never been more unstable, especially for Come to Grief hard-working young bands trying to esC e n tu ry Me d i a (1 9 9 4 ) tablish themselves among a sea of flashy Guitars played slow and loud on open Johnny-come -latelys. New bands are as chords. Feedback squealing from fleeting as teenage lovers, ruling your the cracks like the riffs need WD-40. world one minute and gone the next. Cymbals crashing with nearly every Sometimes it’s because the band went chord change. Vocalist spewing omnitits up; other times it’s because we were directional hate and throat mucus. distracted by a new hot, young thing and forgot all about Yep, Grief are a sludge band, and whatstheirname. sludge doesn’t get more elemental Why bother getting than Come to Grief. MY TOP 5 Formed from the remains of emotionally invested? JOSEPH D. Boston crust-punkers Disrupt, But then, every so Grief brought hardcore’s looseoften, it happens: the ness and fuck-off attitude to their Real Thing appears. Pallbearer first proper full-length. You can With Sorrow and ExType O imagine a thousand sweaty dudetinction, Pallbearer Negative, filled that void for bros screaming lyrics like “I can’t October Rust relate with your world / And I legions of jilted metSaint Vitus, don’t want to try” from the midalheads. The Little Hallow’s Victim dle of a vicious circle pit. Except Rock quartet shot there’s barely anything to headtheir arrow deep into Solstice, bang to on Come to Grief, let alone the saggy ass of doom Lamentations grist for moshing. Grief invert the devotees with such Asunder, energy of hardcore, letting their grace and soulfulness, A Clarion Call misanthropy fester over sustained they damn near took Funeral, From chords and tar pit tempos. our breath away. SorThese Wounds With only the occasional row lured us in with a groove to brighten the misery, humble acoustic intro Come to Grief is pretty one-note, and promptly clubbed but that’s kinda the point. The monous over the head with soaring, slowly calithic sludge riffs are as unforgiving as reening guitars; a bubbling, caustic underbelly; and the incomparable singing life itself. At least playing this music is cathartic, right? Listen to the final line of Brett Campbell, whose emotive cries of “Stricken:” “I used to have friends recalled early Ozzy and Rob Halford. / Now all I have are these three fuckThe crushing devastation filled hearts ing assholes / And I’m getting sick of with joy. Yes, joy. For all its darkness, their shit, too.” Hmmm… maybe not. Sorrow was resplendent with promise. —ETAN ROSENBLOOM Ain’t love grand? —JEANNE FURY

onsidering how fully realized and darkly radiant Shades of God (1992) truly is—“Mortals Watch the Day” offers up an opener for the ages—it’s a shame that Paradise Lost’s brilliant third full-length is these days most frequently referenced as the “transition album,” wherein Nick Holmes began to skip away from death-y growls toward Hetfield-ian Icon pastures to come. And yet, such is Mu si c fo r Nat i o n s/ the perhaps inevitable fate of even Metal Blad e ( 19 9 3 ) a great record sandwiched between a subgenre prime mover like Gothic (1991) and bona fide game-changer Icon, the latter a dizzyingly expansive, all-artistic-cylinders-firing epic, which—regardless of whether the larger culture ever quite recognized or embraced it—represented a heavy music evolution on par with Ride the Lightning, Hammerheart or Appetite for Destruction. On one hand, it’s easy to see why the record annoyed some early fans not quite prepared for the shotgun polygamous marriage of Sabbath, Sisters of Mercy and Handel, but on the other… fuck the purists: Desolation never sounded or felt so uplifting. Turn the lights off and the volume up, and Icon will transport you to another dimension. Shades saw Paradise Lost “Crying for Eternity”; on Icon, the band achieved a measure of immortality. —SHAWN MACOMBER

ROWLAND

paradise lost