Drone Doom
 

Who here's into this?

I brief description from Wikipedia that sums up the sub genre better than I could...

So yeah, other than the so-called 'big three', who are your favourites? SHARE THE GOODS.

Hyatari, KTL, Sink, Locrian, The Angelic Process, AUN, Menace Ruine, This Will Destroy You, Bunkur, Nadja, ASVA and Otesanek are all great.

I dl'd Black One by Sunn O))) recently, it's almost in a purely noisy/sound sample rock arena, but It Took the Night to Believe is one killer ass song. I need to get through the whole album, but it's hella noisy and hella atmospheric.

How are the other two? I'm new to the genre but i love sludgy, doomy metal so i'd like to get at least into them if they're good.

I was going to mention Nadja and The Angelic Process as well. I recommend Sundrips too, but they're more of an ambient/psychedelic drone sound. If anything, just hunt around the last.fm tag for "Drone Doom".

They've got like seven albums, I'd say you should definitely invest some time in Black One, very much worth it. Monoliths & Dimensions is amazing too, it's their newest release. White2 and Void are also good, as is Altar, the collaboration with Boris.

This Will Destroy You are amazing. I prefer their older post-rock stuff but I fell asleep to Tunnel Blanket last night, and it is fantastic as well.

Libations of Samhain is one of my top drone doom tracks ever. Also love The Angelic Process and This Will Destroy You. Also Bunkur's 'Bludegon', I've got that on cd and mutli-lp format. The LP sounds better, but I feel like having to switch sides and stuff loses some of the atmosphere.

Bit more on the experimental side of things, but I highly recommend Stalaggh. Really out there, bleak doom stuff, replete with a mythos involving one of the audio engineers killing himself during production and the group using actual mental patients for vocals. It's ridiculous, but sounds pretty awesome.

I love Earth's The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull for being such a gorgeous drone album with minimal to no use of distortion. Very organic sounding yet still chock full o' doom.

I simply must look into this.

It some ridiculous stuff. I don't know how much of the rumors relating to people killing themselves while it's being recorded and mental patients doing the vocals are true, but it definitely sets you in the right mindset for listening to the stuff. It's very dark and pretty creepy ****.

Shit's intense, I'll give you that. Requires further listening to establish whether I'll be able to glean any enjoyment out of it.

That Menace Ruin song is so, so great. I'm not sure if I could totally get into music like this right now, but that track in particuliar is killer.

I listened to a bit of that's song and it's goood, a lot more accessible than Black One, but probably because it gives off a kind of stoner rock/metal vibe to a more minimal/low key extent. I don't know if this reflects all their work but that's what i gained from a couple of minutes of that song. I'll check it again soon.

If you like that, I implore you to get hold of The Die is Cast. Cult of Ruins too... Menace Ruine are a great band.

I have to say, I cannot like this kind of music. When I listen to it, I either get bored, start feeling like my ears are bleeding, or in the case of the first song in the Opening Post, more than a little creeped out...

the Earth song SATCHMO linked to I quite like, though I can agree with the statements saying that it is rather more accessible, probably due to the lack of overbearing distortion :P I guess I'm wondering what it is about this genre that people like? Also, as an aside, are you all fans of post-rock? I guess I'm just interested in finding out why it's interesting, it might help me get into it a little bit.

Obviously I can't speak for anybody else, but the reasons why I like drone doom are manifold. Primarily, I find the tones and textures cultivated through layers of distortion and dissonance deeply engaging. It forces me to actively listen to the music to identify the underlying sounds, and as a consequence I find myself more absorbed in this type of music than any other.

Also, I love the atmospheres drone doom evokes. They're very affecting for me personally and I find myself totally consumed in moods and themes I otherwise find intangible.

Ultimately, listening to drone doom is a hugely stimulating experience, both mentally and viscerally. Depending on what you want from it, it can allow you to escape yourself, or delve deep into yourself.

To answer your other question, I love post-punk, yes.

I love the newer Earth albums. Dylan Carlson does the whole western-drone-doom-ambienty stuff amazingly well. It's pretty weird that Earth pioneered the whole drone doom genre and Sunn O))) was originally just a "Earth tribute band". Now Earth opens for Sunn O)))

The new Earth album is gorgeous.

Earth were the first drone band. When they started out they were more obviously doomy.



Nowadays, they've got sort of a stoner, country thing going on. They were actually not a metal band BTW. They came from the Seattle grunge movement of all things. They were more influenced by The Melvins and Black Flag than any doom metal. Fun fact, the gun Kurt Kobain shot himself with actually belonged to the guitarist from Earth. Or so I hear.

I'm with Stu as far as being lost in the moods and themes. Something about the construction of drone doom really lets me sink into those feelings. Also, with the louder, more 'static' (for lack of a better term) type stuff, I love to crank it on headphones and just let myself get crushed under the weight of all the sound. When I turn it off I feel like my head is decompressed.

Boris owns.

Sunn O))) are boring as ********* but if I'm in a downtempo mood, I can dig. I have to be in my ambient mood.

Have you ever waded out in the ocean when there's big surf and been knocked around and pushed under by waves? Kind of a pleasant experience, no? The anticipation of waves about to crash over you, the violence of collision, the limbo of drifting beneath the surf, how refreshing it is to re-emerge, it's all pretty enjoyable and it's very similar to what I enjoy about listening drone doom.

New Earth is decent, but it isn't drone doom. They moved away from that after Hex...

If you're looking for drone/doom style Boris then I'd say Amplifier Worship and Absolutego. Also the collarb with Sunno))), Altar.

And Dronevil, definitely Dronevil.

Five drone doom albums for a n00b.

Go.

Menace Ruine - The Die is Cast
Earth - Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version
Boris - Amplifier Worship
This Will Destroy You - Tunnel Blanket
Sunn 0))) & Boris - Altar

They're the five I'd give to somebody wanting to dip their toes in the sound. From there, darker and heavier things await.

Will take note. I've heard Pink and Flood by Boris so I'll definitely check out Amplifier Worship. Been wanting to hear Earth 2 for some time as well.

Hmmm, I can understand that.

Thanks to everyone who's replied so far, I'll keep that in mind the next time I listen to it. I think sometimes when I come across new music I'm trying to pay too much attention to it. It seems that, particularly with music like this - you need to let it wash over you rather than picking out details.

How could I have forgotten about Dronevil? I am SHAMED.

To be fair, it usually gets overlooked.

Yeah I know, but I love that album. It's really, really good. I think I just end up not recommending it to people I know locally because most of them can't even get through Amplifier Worship, so there's no point in sending them in that direction.

Bump.

Anybody into this should really check out The Process by Sink, if you haven't already. It's good, it's very good.

I currently have Sunn o))) white 2 blasting on my stereo. I've been playing that a lot more than white 1, it's just better sounding. I have black one coming in the mail along with earth's hibernaculum.




Yea they are pretty cool, Throat Ruiner has a lot of great music on their shop.

What do you guys know about Boris' newest album (or whatever it is), Heavy Rocks? the local record shop has it and i was thinking about getting it.

Heavy rocks is worth buying. 100%

There are some droning parts here and there, but it's mostly really solid heavy metal/rock. Also quite experimental just as you would expect from Boris. The song Heavy Friends has a real EARTH feeling to it, Like something off A Bureaucratic Desire album.

Cool beans, thanks!

while it's good music to go to sleep to, it's great music to wake-up to. you haven't experienced drone doom until you've slowly come back into consciousness to the sounds of Sunn 0)))))) or Khanate. Recently I've been into Slomo-The Bog, they use more synthesizers and sequencing than the more well-known groups but keep the aesthetics and overall feel of traditional drone-doom.

Is it bad that i'm scared to actually listen to my Sunn records at full volume, as they request?

It can be a frightening experience if you're not prepared. But if you are ready for it, there's a lot of hidden textures that come out at full volume. Whenever I listen to Sunn, I do it at full volume if I can for just that reason.

Full blast is by far the best way to tackle Sunn 0))), it doesn't fully make sense any other way. It's only music ;)