LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

WINTER - INTO DARKNESS (1990)


As doom metal has gotten slower, bands have looked for various ways of occupying their audiences, and perhaps their own, attention. One aptly-named band that wasn't really interested in frills, though, was Winter. Most of what you're getting here: heavy guitar tone and slow tempos. And it's great. The band had strong roots in the New York hardcore scene, actually, and they have a certain crustiness to their sound. Expect lots of squealing feedback, and apocalyptic musings resembling the likes of Amebix.

As much as this is a really foundational death/doom record, I think it also is one of the first albums in a tradition of sludge metal albums that have decided they're no longer interested in creating an accessible exterior and just producing the most punishing, glacial music possible (bands like Grief, Noothgrush, Corrupted and more recently Primitive Man all fit this mould). And part of what makes this kind of music so crushing is it's very monotony. An album like this leaves you very little breathing room. It's not interesting in being kind to you, or holding your hand. There is no way out except through. You're trapped in a never ending nightmare. You are suffocating. And that's what makes it so incredibly cathartic and almost cleansing.

I think this album is to thank for many, many brutal developments of sludge and doom metal. No longer the heaviest record on earth, it's an important benchmark for this kind of approach to pure, caustic depression. Legendary. I think Servants of the Warsmen is corny tho. I think the slower sections in general are the stronger stuff here, and Eternal Frost has one of the most evil riffs ever.

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

DYSTOPIA - HUMAN = GARBAGE (1994)



Are you angry? Are you angry... at the government? Are you angry at other people? Do you hate everything and want just want to ****ing die? Are you paranoid that someone is watching you (no me neither)? Feel loathsome? Do you worry about the end of the world? Do you like loud, angry, music about hating things?

Boy have I got the album for you.

This band is about the punkiest thing going in sludge metal. Dystopia is more or less a crust punk band that sometimes slows down and plays like Crowbar. And boy do they rip, this is a very aggressive crust sound edging into power-violence. The album features throat threading screams and violent drumming. I promise you it will make you want to beat up your parents.

It also is an example of heavy music that uses sample collage stuff well -- though it's very edgy and disturbing. This is a very explicitly anti capitalist album, and the general vibe it gives off is an almost misanthropic hatred for the society the band has to live in verging on suicidal and homicidal impulses. Heavy stuff.

When we do get breaks from the buzzsaw guitars, what we get are mostly bass driven moments that have an angular, post punk feel (this is actually kind of how the album starts, before hitting you with a fat sludge riff). So, without anything super elaborate instrumentation wise this band effectively creates an oppressive, paranoid, and inarguably dystopian atmosphere paired with really chaotic thrashing and the kinetic energy of a bulldozer.

Put on this album and fight someone in public. Go fight the mayor of your town with this playing. Just kidding. Go like liberate some animals or like idk man. Go like not bathe to this album.

Great music to be pissed to. Whirlwind battery acid.

Oh and the vocalist for this band would go on to form Noothgrush, who I'll probably cover at some point. Oakland actually has quite a few good sludge bands to look out for.

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus (1984)


This is what Saint Vitus sounded like before Wino. I forget this dude's name but I'm too high to really feel like looking it up (as one should be when listening to Saint Vitus). But the vocals here are definitely solid. Unlike the more personal writing on Born too Late, this album makes use of camp and occult themes to pretty good effect. White magic/black magic is appropriately satanic and rebellious and Zombie Hunger is just a bit of decomposing fun.

This is kind of an odd record. They're a metal band, but signed to Black Flag's label SST and sharing a producer with Black Flag during an era when many punks and metalheads where skeptical even of crossover. And there is quite a lot of hardcore here. The opener, Saint Vitus, is sort of like hardcore at a jog, rather than a sprint. It even has gang vocals.

Despite that, however, this band actually really pushed doom music in a slower, more, even, funeral direction with tracks like Burial at Sea. I think Saint Vitus was one of the first bands to approach slowness as something that had had to be continually pushed forward, and they certainly did on this release. This is like Sabbath on Robitussin, or Black Flag on heroin.

They KISS in terms of riffs like a punk band but it sounds great and all of the songs are anchored by strong melodies and concepts. I like the roughness of the recording. Idk, this album just has a certain allure to it. Definitely an important push into slower and heavier territory from one of the most classic metal bands period. An early example of sludge?

The Batlord

I feel like I've heard them in passing. I might just be thinking of a similar album cover though. Pretty sweet. That Necro Schizma demo is is the absolute jam though. I find that with death/doom I don't really need a bunch of different iterations of the genre, I just want the pure form nailed correctly, so if I'm in that mood I'll usually play that album, Thorr's Hammer's EP, or Runemagick's second album

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LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

CATHEDRAL - FOREST OF EQUILIBRIUM(1991)



A bizarre, surreal nightmare. This band is really heavily praised by groups like Electric Wizard, and it's clear why: this album takes the fuzzed out dad rock doom of Saint Vitus to an altogether more massive, dark place. Sabbath on bad acid. Sabbath with schizophrenia.

Lee Dorian, previously of Napalm Death, has an odd vocal style. He kind of bellows. There's moments where he nears growls without actually breaking into them. Either way, I find it pretty convincing within the aesthetic of the album.

The riffs on this are good consistently, and I think the songs are fairly distinct on repeat listens. Ebony Tears is an absolute death hym with a massive, droning riff.

You're going to find some dad rock type guitar shredding on this thing, which is all pretty solid, and never goes into masturbation territory. They also have strong guitar melodies at times, such as on Serpent Eve, generally before going into a crushing riff. It's well integrated into the otherwise evil sounding recordings. Definitely an extreme metal vibe here without straying too far from rock and roll.

I think fans of Electric Wizard and Sleep have got to check this band out. I don't see them get as much praise but this is easily as classic as Dopethrone or Dopesmoker. It's just so huge and mysterious and druggy.

Utterly grotesque.

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

BLACK SABBATH - BLACK SABBATH


Sabbath's self titled song has to be one of the greatest openers both for an albums and for a career ever. Kind of wild thinking about what it must have been like to hear this when it came out. The ****ing riff plus the church bells and rain is doomiest ****ing thing ever... and the way Ozzy begs for mercy on this track. This is really iconic, important piece of rock music, and not just for doom proper. Basically, if someone prefers Led Zeppelin more than this band I will slash their tires.

A lot of tropes start here. This, along with Master of Reality (moreso than, say, Paranoid) are really the blueprint for every other album I plan to discuss in this thread. There had certainly been loud rock bands before, but no one was as gloomy till this album. A turning point.

One thing I really appreciate about the debut is all the jamming that happens. It's always worked well into tracks, and Black Sabbath were definitely a band who knew how to improvise tightly. Especially here, they're super jazzy and loose. And boy are there some iconic ****ing riffs here.

Ozzy's vocals are really the gold standard for any kind of melodic doom singing imo. Not very many vocalists could deliver Black Sabbath's material with this level of conviction and style without it coming off corny.

This is my favourite Black Sabbath album. I like the looseness and all the jamming, and I like the atmosphere. I think it's a very good package all told. Actually it's a perfect album. It's one of the best albums of all time.

This is where it all starts...

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

MY DYING BRIDE - TURN LOOSE THE SWANS (1994)


This band is my favourite of the peaceville 3 (Anathema, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost). I think they're the most exploratory, but also, when they need to be, the heaviest of those bands. You should definitely go into this album expecting to hear some piano and violin sections, gaunt spoken or sung lyrics, synths, and clean guitar lines. Also, goth bitch poetry over violins, which I like. This is a very melodic and atmospheric release much of the time, but all of this material is well composed and emotionally riveting (and contributes to the despair and agony of the more violent moments). The whole first song is more or less seven minutes of that kind of thing.

In general the songwriting is strong, with memorable hooks and loads of dynamics. Many of the songs approach or surpass ten minutes, and generally have quite ambitious structures. The band will switch from contemplative ambience to huge, looming melodies and then crush you in a riff slug fest. For me, this is an album that earns its 80 minute runtime. The band know just when to let a concept breathe and when to switch it up, and you're constantly being hit by different textures. Despite the music's slowness and patience, this is very well paced and breezy stuff.

But also expect some mean ****ing riffs played LOUD at excruciating tempos. Usually, softer and harsher sections will alternate within a song, and often suddenly. I appreciate that My Dying Bride, despite all their frills, can deliver nasty, pounding death metal. The gutturals are gnarly at times too.

This album probably has my favourite riffs in all of death/doom, and is more than willing to let them breathe. Sections from this album get stuck in my head a lot. For example, that one really propulsive riff after Your River breaks into distortion often runs through my head at work for hours. I love how massive and meandering the first riff on The Songless Bird is, and how gnarly the guitars become later on when the track gets really violent. The best track, though, has to be the apocalyptic, industrial Transcending (Into the Exquisite), which follows an ambient drone piece, and is probably the most genuinely vicious thing here. The addition of programmed drums somehow manages to crack open my skull. Four on the floor-ing you into a pulp.

It's a real shame that some metal fans have such a distaste for these bands. It's true that they went on to influence a lot of somewhat questionable gothic metal, but a band like My Dying Bride can play really nasty death metal and works that into an attractive larger package. For that matter, I think it's a shame a lot of goth and post punk fans turn their noses up at this stuff. Oh well. I like them, but probably because I'm a sad bitch. This one will reward patience, and repeat listens.

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

THERGOTHON - STREAM FROM THE HEAVENS



Whether or not this is truly the first funeral doom album, it's definitely the one that popularized the genre, with many bands building off the archetypal sound on display here. This is definitely an album you want to treat kind of like ambient music. While some later releases in the style, like those of Skepticism, would take a much more abrasive approach, Thergothon's guitars are too awash in reverb and couched in spooky synths to really be all that visceral. Though part of the point is to be monotonous, rays of sunshine occasionally penetrate the band's sour funk in the form of folk instrumentation. When it appears it's a nice pallette cleanser, and makes this release probably a good way to get into funeral doom, since it's only 40 minutes long.

What the band is doing here is creating a depressive and mournful atmosphere, and I think they do a great job. The vocals sit at a low rumble and the guitars periodically wash over you, dragging you straight to hell (check the backtracked vocals that appear a few times). It's a good recording to get lost in, listening to the bizarre, surreal tone and appropriately low barrier to entry synth melodies. And it is very dark and heavy, but not by way of blunt force. Oh by the way, no, this isn't even a little bit catchy either.

Despondent, lethargic, and full of despair. It's music to have a bad time to. This was kind of the next step, I think, from Winter's into darkness. Soon, however, the influence of this band would push death metal into even slower, more catatonic directions. Skepticism developed this bands brutality, while Esoteric cached in on its psychedelic powers. Still, this is worth a try in its own right. It really isn't all that inaccessible.

Put this on to slowly die and ROT.

LEGALISE DRUGS AND MURDER

GRIEF - COME TO GRIEF (1994)



Stream from the Heavens is certainly a dark, contemplative listen that took death metal to a new, lumbering crawl. That record is surreal, cerebral and nightmarish. But it isn't caustic. It isn't angry, it's too alien for that.

If Thergothon is like being dragged to hell, Grief is like being submerged in acid and spending a few hours going there yourself. No synthesizers, no spooky reverb. This is a series of hateful, painful, misanthropic, and SEETHING dirges, most of which pretty much sound the same, which is exactly how I want them to sound. I love to submerge myself in fifty minutes of sonic hatred and despondency.

Grief isn't usually called a funeral band, and they don't make death metal. This is, in fact, a very very crust -tinged sound, with shrieked vocals (though the vocalist can make a variety of terrifying sounds), buzzing feedback, and unbridled anger. It's a specific kind of anger. Hatred that has become so total that it's crossed over into despair and suicidal, misanthropic depression. This is the sonic representation of loathing, suffering, and madness.

And that's about all it does. The riffs are mostly discordant and distressing, and what melodies the band does bring to the table mostly just sound like frostbite. Now and then we get hit with a groovier riff, but mostly this band doesn't so much rock and it looms. The lyrics are not having a good day. This is not hooky, friendly, or accessible music. It doesn't ****ing care if you like it. It's from bawston.

This is another example, along with Siege of a metal or hardcore band from Boston pushing the envelope to such an abrasive, toxic extent. The music is putrid and miasmic. Another album I use as a yardstick for heavy.

Fans of drone music and noise may appreciate this more than many metal listeners. Definitely an album for people who like it low, slow and caustic. And that funeral doom material is good and all, and some of it is very heavy, but I know whose side I'm on. Get bulldozed. If you like this, you need help.

Trollheart

Can I suggest you post some videos? Your descriptions are great, but I think we'd like to hear the music you're talking about. Usually in journals people tend to accompany their writing with examples from YouTube; maybe you don't have access or have some other reason not to do that, but if you could I think it would really help.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018