Being a relatively old git now, I generally find most funeral doom quite monotonous and boring these days, but I've just discovered Celestiial, and am absolutely mesmerised by their more ambient organic take on the genre. I love the way each chord fades in as if from a distance, rather than bashing you over the head, and the natural ambient sounds add constantly changing texture.

Are there any other bands that sound like this, or are Celestiial currently one of a kind?

never heard Dooom, but "Last etc" is a damn good album. I don't listen to funeral doom very frequently, but when i do, it's almost always Worship, along with Skepticism, Thergothon and Mournful Congregation

i really enjoy both of the celestiial full lengths. tho i prefer desolate north. that being said blood of the black owl may or may not be to your liking. it may also be of interest to you to check out the bindrune label and distro as they kinda have a theme to what they release. both blood of the black owl and celestiial appear on bindrune if i remember correctly. hope this is of some help. Now i know Nortt doesnt do the nature thing like celestiial but i find some similarities between the two.

Relatively new to these genres but the names mentioned over the last few pages will give me a place to start, so thank you for that. That being said, are there any bands whether already mentioned or not that have technical or at least moderately "busy" drumming? I understand that given the tempos and overall nature of what this style is about that seems like a paradox, but I'm curious as to whether there's an equivalent to what someone like Steve Shelton of Confessor does on an even slower level. Any recs would be much appreciated and if there's nothing that's applicable, that's understandable.

Ehnahre have quite 'busy' drumming at times, though they are very different from Confessor stylistically, more on the avant-garde side.

Although it only borders on doom/death and funeral doom, Cathedral's debut "Forest of Equilibrium" features Mike Smail from Penance on drums, and his playing style is much busier and more syncopated than most doom drummers. Not as overtly technical as Confessor, but enough to keep things interesting.

Thanks for the recs. I have some of BotBo's material, but keep meaning to explore further. I find it a little tedious in places, but the tribal elements are interesting.

Nortt I did vaguely know, but never really explored. A quick listen just now shows a lot of promise -- a similar approach to playing, but, as you say, without the nature element. Cheers.

i am a big fan of nortt, definitly more black doom than death doom but oh well what is good is good.

Wonderful band, and one of the few that has a truly haunting atmosphere about them. Something about them just makes me feel... uneasy.

Hey primitivevoid, checked out any more of the bands I recommended? I'm curious about which ones you like/dislike.

i havent really had the time to look in to them though i am keeping eyes open if i stumbled across them in my internet travels. i am really interested in crimson relic and delirum however and am tracking them down.

I also discovered gorement and dark millennium who were both to my tastes of doomed out death metal. another update would be finding a copy of shades of night descending by evoken and checking it out for myself. yes they def always had the funeral vibes going on.

Well, if you like Gorement you might be interested in Eternal Darkness, also from Sweden. They play a similar style of doomed-up Swedish death metal with a healthy helping of melody. I don't know how easy their compilation is to come by physically, but it's widely available through piracy, so you might want to give that one a go.

i will definitly look for it.

enjoying some evoken right now and thought id post to say evoken are epic and if your not familiar with them your doing yourself a dis service esp if your reading in this thread.

ok then, where should I start?

anyway, I came here to say that I just finished listening to Alloy, and someone please kick me in the balls for ignoring this album for so long

Consider yourself kicked.

For Evoken there's no better way to start than Antithesis Of Light, such a massively brutal and hypnotic album.

Everyone should hear The Austrasian Goat's second album. It's crushing, depressing, and has amazing melodies.

for evoken you really cant go wrong with any of their albums, each one is solid funeral goodness. My introduction to them was the antithesis of light album, which to this day is considered to be there finest moment by many fans. There newer material is more polished while there earlier stuff is a little more raw, but there is really no bad place to start with when looking in to checking out these usa greats.

I've got to say thanks to whoever posted he's listening Ixion and calling it space doom, I immediately wanted to check it out. Their debut album is really great piece of doom, a la Skepticism 'Stormcrowfleet' meets Thergothon 'Stream from the Heavens' (just not so badly produced) with ethereal music. Recommended for fans of Skepticism and pretty much anyone loving (extreme) doom metal.

My favourite doom/death albums would be October Tide's Rain Without End Katatonia's Dance of December Souls Both sound quite different from eachother (the latter also having more in common with black metal perhaps) yet are as awesome. I really can't pick which album I like better.

Lately My Dying Bride's Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium and As the Flower Withers has grown on me a lot. Amazing, eerie doom/death metal. ''Sear Me'' is probably my favourite track by this band.

I also noticed many early bands who played doom/death eventually completely turned away from their roots. Most disappointed me although I'd say that Paradise Lost became quite a better band once they did. FDU-DUU is easily the best thing they ever came up with.

Not necessarily. My Dying Bride have mostly kept to the same path, save for dropping the harsh vocals, mainly due to the ravages of time.

I'm glad that they did, they all became better bands for it. Anathema is one of my favourite bands, but I can't stand their first album. Turn Loose the Swans was good but As the Flower Withers? Boring as fuck. Gothic is a classic, but Lost Paradise? All of those bands had very weak starts.

Hah I don't agree at all.

My Dying Bride's former album is way better written and I prefer the rawer style of Lost Paradise when it comes to Paradise Lost. (I'd say this is also their best 90's album.) Anathema became better they stopped playing metal but that's not really saying much.

Necro is just outrageously misguided as always. No need to pay any attention to him.

Well, if you think those three debuts are anywhere near as good as what would come after, as opposed to incredibly unmemorable death/doom with poor vocals that would be perfected by other bands, then yes I would rather you payed no attention to me.

Since all my liked doom/death metal albums are from the 90's I should seek more modern stuff. Can anyone recommend me some stuff from the last, say, 10 years that's really good?

Oh boy, I get to whore this out again!

Necro does have a point, even though I pretty much enjoy the albums in question. There's much better death/doom in the nineties.

@ Colin040 - Doom:VS is probably the best example of modern death/doom out there, really good stuff!

PS: For those of you wondering why I write "death/doom" instead of "doom/death" get over it. I always write it that way even though this site's standard is to write first the one which is more prevalent in the mix.

I would recommend For Winter Fire by Seidr, one of the best doom albums (and albums overall) that I've ever listened to.

Looking for crushing Death/ Doom with lot's of Celtic Frost worship. Think like Winter or Coffins. Funeral Doom is okay as well as long as it's done in good taste.

iAm, check out Crimson Relic's Purgatory's Reign and Delirium (Nld)'s Zzooouhh. And Cianide's The Dying Truth of course, but I'll just assume you know that one already since it's pretty well-known.

Also, very few death/doom releases ever reached the quality of Serenades and Lost Paradise, but I can see how it wouldn't appeal to those who prefer cheesy gothic metal with growls or slowed-down melodeath over actual music. Melo-death/doom in particular is an abomination which should not even exist, yet it is the most popular form of death/doom (without containing any actual death or doom) these days.

Dunno which bands you mean with melo-death, but if you're talking about the accesible, bland Brave Murder Day influenced kind of thing then I agree.

Lost Paradise just rules. It's raw, sounds poor but at the same time I really enjoy how the death and doom metal elements are mixed. ''Breeding Fear'' and ''Rotting Misery'' are probably my favourite tracks on that album.

lets get a conversation started. who is the band that defines death/doom for you? what was the first band that got you in to the genre etc...

For me, Winter's Into Darkness, is both the first real death/doom album i heard and it defines the genre for me. The album is an absolute classic beast from start to finnish. I wasnt much in to death metal at the time i first heard them, but there was something different about them that kept bringing me back to them, and i am forever greatful that my local record store had a copy of said album in the bargain used bin. It was a steal at 4 dollars for what would become one of my all time favorite albums of any metal genre.

for me it kinda happened all at once. im pretty sure the first death doom band i listened to and really liked was ghost brigade. from there i went with:

doom-vs
rapture
daylight dies
novembers doom

funeral doom i only just got into

ahab
evoken

bands that im not sure if they are death/doom black/doom or just hard to classify

october falls
forgotten tomb
the old dead tree
novembre
woods of ypres<---as far as black/doom goes i think woods 2 is the best example from them.
nortt

there are alot more bands but off the top of my head thats what i came up with.

The group that got me into death/doom is early Theatre of Tragedy. I loved the song "A Rose for the Dead" the very first time I heard it, and when I encountered My Dying Bride, I knew this was a genre I could get cozy with.

And now The Slow Death is my favorite of the bunch.

As far as funeral doom goes, I've honestly never heard any. You can see what I like, folks. Lemme know what I'm missing.

It appears you enjoy clean vocals in your doom/death, and you prefer the more gothic side of things. i am the mirror opposit. However you may do well checking out Asunder, they are funeral do om with some violin and some clean vocals as well, though they really dont fit on the gothic side of things i would still recomend them. Thergothon i think may also be to your liking if funeral doom is at all.

Yeah, I'm familiar with Cianide and have listened to Crimson Relic before from youtube clips. Definitely on the right track! I'll have to check out Delirium.

iAm, check out Corrupted. They're one of the few groups that I would classify as crushing, as I don't like to throw that term around.

He didn't ask for sludge bands. If he did, he'd be in the wrong thread.

Try Unholy from Finland. They're on the border between death/doom and funeral doom, and based on what you like I think you might enjoy them. Personally I don't like their clean vocals, but since you like The Slow Death you seem to have a thick skin in that department.