The Wounded - Atlantic

Genre(s) - Gothic/doom metal/rock
Origin - The Netherlands
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 65.33 MB

A majestic opus of downcast gloom rock is not an export product you might expect from the picturesque province of Drenthe, or maybe again, it's exactly what you can expect - I wouldn't know what to do with myself either except for masturbating, drinking pils and playing depressive music. Living in the inhabited world I don't need to play depressive music because I have internet so I can listen to others doing it for me. All this tells you nothing about the album and is discriminating to non-Randstadters, I'm sorry. Atlantic is as vast and deep and churning restless as the ocean mirroring steel-grey skies. Singer Marco van der Velde has an astounding emotional voice and gives a great performance on songs like 18. Carat Dust or the lethargic, extra-extra-tortured Nirvana cover. The long closer and title track is a great hypnotic trip though lands of guilt and dejection. It's been six long years without an album now, I hope The Wounded will soon be patched up enough to write some more material. Who else hurts you so well?

1. Hollow world
2. 18. carat dust
3. Running on empty
4. Day of joy
5. Northern lights
6. "Prelude"
7. Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana cover)
8. We are darker
9. Atlantic
   

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My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans

Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Year of release - 1993
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 52.17 MB

Turn Loose the Swans is a doom metal mammoth of frightening dimensions and an immense influence on the then-youthful death-doom subgenre in metal. Its makers, the institution that is My Dying Bride, are rightfully revered as pioneers and contemporary masters in bringing an edge of tragic elegance and emotional indulgence into the usually so stone-faced world of metal. This beast here is slow, really quite slow, as it should be. It does not stalk; it shakes the earth in its weight, yet still in graceful stride. This is not impossible if you have a violinist like Martin Powell, or a singer like Aaron Stainthorpe. Aaron who, in addition to his dejected, gracefallen clean voice, can lay down the deathgrunts damn well. This is an album to be experienced, song by solemn song.

More by this band: here and here.

1. Sear me MCMXCIII
2. Your river
3. The songless bird
4. The snow in my hand
5. The crown of sympathy
6. Turn loose the swans
7. Black god
   

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Black Sun Aeon - Darkness Walks beside Me

Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Finland
Year of release - 2009
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 39.90 MB

Black Sun Aeon are a young and hopeful new and quite melodic death-doom band and their first album definitely doesn't sound bad. They immediately reminded me of the Russian band The Morningside, who sounded more convincingly doomy and sorrowful at the first attempt than many lauded adept bands ever have. Though it could have been a bit slower and heavier, this kind of stuff is really my style, with grand, sweeping melodies in a warm tone, that succeed well in conveying the passion with which they are evidently played. Doom metal, every time you hear it it should really be a casual stroll on the path of no return. Black Sun Aeon knows this, and they are quite prepared to take you by the hand. Great effort, which leaves me wondering why this didn't end up in my list for 2009!

1. Chapter 1 (a song for the introduction)
   
2. Chapter 2 (a song for my wrath)
   
3. Chapter 3 (a song for my demise)
   
4. Chapter 4 (a song for my sorrow)
   
5. Chapter 5 (a song for my weakness)
   
6. Chapter 6 (a song for this winter)
   
7. Chapter 7 (a song for my illness)
   
8. Chapter 8 (a song for my funeral)
   
9. Chapter 9 (a song for the one who passed away 4.9.2008)
   

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Amorphis - Tales from the Thousand Lakes

Genre(s) - (kind of melodic doomy death??) - Metal!!
Origin - Finland
Year of release - 1994
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 36.20 MB

What a weird release Thousand Lakes is. I don't know, but the mix sounds all weird, really hollow, and with synths whose tone can only be described as weird. Or is it just me? For some reason however, I've always held on to this album and I couldn't face my conscience if I were to say it was bad. It has a quite relaxed overall feeling, with many pleasant and classic melodies that captured a lot of people (at least I know here in Holland Amorphis were universally well-liked and highly esteemed, especially this album). Personal favourites are the threesome of First Doom, Black Winter Day and Drowned Maid, sporting the best harmonies. In constrast to most later work, it's all rather simple in construction (esp. the drums are extremely basic) and too neutral in mood for my tastes, but somehow this has that kind of charm that leaves few people unaffected. But yeah, it sounds kinda weird.

1. Thousand lakes
2. Into hiding
3. The castaway
4. First doom
   
5. Black winter day
6. Drowned maid
7. In the beginning
8. Forgotten sunrise
9. To father's cabin
10. Magic and mayhem
    

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My Dying Bride - 34.788%... Complete

Genre(s) - Experimental (doom) metal
Origin - Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Year of release - 1998
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 51.31 MB

34.788%... Complete perplexed critics and fans, and there was every reason to be perplexed. This wasn't the My Dying Bride we were used to! In the end it was too unfamiliar to digest for most doomsters and it is still generally regarded as a dubious aberration in the band's career. This is a pity because it has a lot of charm if you don't have your expectations set on crushing doom alone. It's a very vague album, not unmetal but highly experimental with psychedelic under-, over- and other tones. The Whore, the Cook and the Mother is the best example of this and therefore the most enveloping track on the disk. And I can understand nobody was hoping for a track like Heroin Chic (Not Chick as the mp3 tag and file name say! More or less my mistake), where Aaron seems especially influenced by Michael Gira's reciting-singing style and trip-hop soundscapes. But there are plenty of moments where the "old" My Dying Bride shines through (The Stance..., Der Überlebende, Under Your Wings...) so I don't get all of the fuss. Recommended to any metalhead feeling adventurous and in for something 34.788%... completely different.

1. The whore, the cook and the mother
2. The stance of Evander Sinoue
3. Der Überlebende
4. Heroin chic
5. Apocalypse woman
6. Base level erotica
7. Under your wings and into your arms
   

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Krux - Krux

Genre(s) - Traditional doom metal
Origin - Sweden
Year of release - 2002
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 50.48 MB

I'm eating so in the meantime I might just prepare an entry for your enjoyment and schedule it for somewhere this week.

A supergroup of sorts, Krux is manned by (ex-)members of such bands as Candlemass, Therion, Opeth, Entombed, and other giants of the Swedish metal scene that teamed up to play some colossal doom. Very. Colossal. Doom. Stuff from the old school, the kind that has to be really convincing it it wants to impress me. And that it does. The music strides with confidence, and maybe just a pinch of arrogance (can you blame them? In fact, would you dare?), and it tramples the earth where it goes. All that without losing the catch - check out the refrains in Popocatepetl and Omfalos. If you hadn't extracted it from the above: this stuff is huge and you deserve it.

1. Black room
2. Krux
3. Nimis
4. Sibiria
5. Omfalos
6. Enigma EZB
7. Popocatepetl
8. Evel rifaz
9. Lunochod

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Tiamat - Amanethes

Genre(s) - Gothic metal
Origin - Sweden
Year of release - 2008
Bitrate - 224-320 kbps
Size - 84.87 MB

Despite numerous recommendations I still haven't taken the effort to delve into Tiamat's back catalogue beyond Judas Christ, but that's because I've simply been satisfied with their later material. Now this album is quite a bit heavier than the aforementioned one, like they mixed it with their early nineties sound. It's dark and heavy stuff that manages to combine charging bombast with a twisted sense of beauty. Some of the melodies seem somewhat Middle Eastern-tinged which definitely serves the occult mood well. Temple of the Crescent Moon is a ripping opener, seriously absurd in its ecstatic savagery, and unfortunately moments of such grandeur do not recur very often in the rest of Amanethes, though plenty of moments are also pretty dramatic. But in any case most of the songs on here are as dark and alluring like that tall, handsome man in the trenchcoat who's lost his puppy in the bushes and is asking you to help him find it.

1. The temple of the crescent moon
2. Equinox of the gods
3. Until the hellhounds sleep again
4. Will they come
5. Lucienne
6. Summertime is gone
7. Katarraktis apo aima
8. Raining dead angels
9. Misanthropolis
10. Amanitis
11. Meliae
12. Via dolorosa
13. Circles
14. Amanes
    

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Nymphea Aurora - Misery

Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Veenendaal, the Netherlands
Year of release - 2005
Bitrate - 320 kbps
Size - 73.69 MB

First demo of a up-and-coming Dutch death-doom band that is as of yet unsigned. It's still a bit unpolished of course, the production is not perfect and they don't push the boundaries of doom, but I like what they're doing and I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I put this up. After a simple intro, Misery... is a stately opening, but it's in Polluted Absolution and The Touch of an Angel that the doom is layed on thick. These are definitely the songs you want to check out this demo for. Not bad at all, that's for sure, and it definitely reminds me of the pride of the Dutch Doom dancers, Officium Triste. Let's hope they make it far.

1. Intro
2. Misery...
3. Polluted absolution
4. In solitude...
5. Alone with nature
6. The touch of an angel
   

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Doomsword - Let Battle Commence

Genre(s) - Traditional doom metal
Origin - Italy
Year of release - 2003
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 71.89

Though Italy might not sound like an entirely logical place of origin for Viking-themed metal, it should be known that the Northmen sailed the entire width of the Mediterranean sea, and set up trading posts deep in the European inlands. Some of these travellers might just have established a lineage around Gallarate, Lombardia, from which this savage warband springs. Doomsword don't play your average "Viking metal" fare, looking much more closely to Candlemass than to Bathory for inspiration. The epic, no-bullshit heaviness of tracks like Heathen Assault, The Siege or In the Battlefield does lend itself much more to themes of Medieval warfare than depression and the music and texts really reinforce each other. Of course the greatest role in this has been reserved for the vocalist, one mr. Deathbringer (pity...), whose deep, powerful bellows are the perfect glue between music and lyrics. Seriously, what a voice. Let Battle Commence proves the epic doom template fits well with warlike pagan lyrics and manages to sound more genuinely "Viking" than most of the Scandinavian stuff in the process.

1. Heathen assault
2. In the battlefield
3. Woden's reign
4. Deathbringer
5. The siege
6. Blood eagle
7. My name will live on
   

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My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River

Genre(s) - Gothic doom metal
Origin - Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Year of release - 1995
Size/bitrate - 57.98 MB/128 kbps

My Dying Bride are bringing the drear with their esteemed third album. It's a stylistic move away from the death-doom they helped pioneer with the preceding albums, featuring only Aaron Stainthorpe's ultra-despondent clean vocals and not his formidable grunts. The production is better than before, though the somewhat turbid feeling of Turn Loose the Swans did add to the audial darkness. Repetitive minimalism with intricate violin lines alternate with grandiose moments of organ-grinding bombast. The opening track is a perennial classic, dirgelike and genuinely beautiful, and this is one of those rare occasions that a rerelease comes with a reccommendable bonus track. In fact, The Sexuality of Bereavement, which didn't make it onto the previous album, is even among the best tracks on the release even though it clashes with the main material. On the whole though it is the violin and the vocals which make the album.

1. The cry of mankind
2. From darkest skies
3. Black voyage
4. A sea to suffer in
5. Two winters only
6. Your shameful heaven
7. The sexuality of bereavement
   

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Voyager - Voyager

Band/artist - Voyager
Genre(s) - Doom metal, post-rock
Origin - United States of America
Album - Voyager
Year of release - 2008

Debut EP (just over half an hour) of a promising new doom metal band that blends post-rock arrangements with the urgent intensity of sludge, and the melancholy, and some of the riffs, of doom-death metal. Sludge has never been able to catch my attention but by tactfully describing this as post-deathdoom, they got me to try it out anyway. It's really good; especially for being the band's first attempt. The combination between doom and post-rock works well, perhaps better even than Caïna's attempt to try the trick on black metal. It adds tension as the riffs seem to somehow vibrate, allowing for a spectacular discharge according to post-rock tradition. You may wanna keep an eye on this band if you're into this kind of music, they seem to know what they're doing better than I know how to describe it.

1. Crushing winds
2. Static pulse
3. Drifter
4. Avulsion
5. Surfacing
   

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The Foreshadowing - Days of Nothing

Band/artist - The Foreshadowing
Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Italy
Album - Days of Nothing
Year of release - 2007

Gothic doom metal. The term may evoke fearful thoughts about more commercial, uptempo songs, female vocalists and dominating symphonic keyboards, but The Foreshadowing prove this doesn't have to be the case. Days of Nothing is dark and heavy, entirely sung in a very fitting clean male voice and the synths are limited to a supporting role. There are many comparisons to draw with My Dying Bride's gothic era outings like The Angel and the Dark River and Like Gods of the Sun, but I'm afraid this Italian apprentice would pulverise their masters - yes, it's really that good. This is genuinely emotive and beautiful, the quality is evenly spread and yet the songs are distinguishable, and the band's attention to detail never slips. A top-notch production and very tight musicianship lend an extra shine to the melancholic guitar leads and keyboard interplay, and when the music is over you will be tempted to play it again. Too bad this is their only album yet... let's hope they don't keep us waiting for too long.

1. Cold waste
2. The wandering
3. Death is our freedom
4. Departure
5. Eschaton
6. Last minute train
7. Ladykiller
8. The fall
9. Days of nothing
10. Into the lips of the earth
    

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Draconian - Where Lovers Mourn

Band/artist - Draconian
Genre(s) - Gothic doom metal
Origin - Sweden
Album - Where Lovers Mourn
Year of release - 2003

Draconian have it all. It's classic death-doom with both good grunts and female vocals, some symphonic elements, versatility abound and a hell of a production job. They very much remind me of their fellow countrymen of Saturnus but with a clearer, less distant sound and better vocals. The music remains dark and solemn throughout but there is a lot of diversity and Where Lovers Mourn never gets boring. Just compare the first two songs: The Cry of Silence is a heavy yet remarkably serene doom track for most of its length, easy on the synths and with mostly growls, gracefully striding to an epic conclusion, while Silent Winter is a shorter, faster song with big orchestration and a center role for Lisa Johansson who sings very staccato here, to great effect. Even though it's not even all that depressive, the music's many layers flow effortlessly and are in beautiful harmony, setting the mood for dark and lonely nights. I think this is one of the most complete, succinct and fulfilling albums in the doom metal genre.

1. The cry of silence
2. Silent winter
3. A slumber did my spirit seal
4. The solitude
5. Reversio ad secessum
6. The amaranth
7. Akherousia
8. It grieves my heart
   

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Mourning Beloveth - Dust

Band/artist - Mourning Beloveth
Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Ireland
Album - Dust
Year of release - 2000

Mourning Beloveth are a bit more orthodox than the previous few death-doom bands I uploaded. Especially Dust, their debut, is very much in line with the British tradition, most of all My Dying Bride in their classic period. That's not to say these Irishmen's music is uninteresting - would this album be here if it was? It's full of good melodies and the progressions in the songs come quite naturally. They manage to create a credible atmosphere without the help of keyboards. I remember the tracks Dust and Autumnal Fires especally fondly. The former has a crushing "chorus" twice somewhere in the middle of the tracks and from the first one on continues in variations on that same theme. The latter song starts out with a wonderful, emotionally strained melody and there are more exquisite moments that cost too much space to mention. Doom by the book, but what's wrong with that?

1. The mountains are mine
2. In mourning my days
3. Dust
4. Autumnal fires
5. All hope is pleading
6. It almost looked human
7. Sinistra
8. Forever lost emeralds
   

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Agalloch - two more EPs

Band/artist - Agalloch
Genre(s) - Neofolk metal
Origin - United States of America (Portland, OR)

So! Agalloch don't have two EPs out, they've got four, and I decided to be a perfectionist and upload 'em all. With all the genre confusion I've decided to call them neofolk-metal, which may be a bit "too short through the corner" but it's simply the most fitting term I can imagine. Their very latest EP, the White one, once again underscores the band's dedication to neofolk - it's entirely written in this tradition - and also their metal material usually shows influences from the genre. The Grey EP starts off with a (very) different version of The Lodge, off The Mantle album, transforming it from a short semi-acoustic track into a long, very beautiful piece of largely black metal-styled melancholy. Odal on the other hand has gotten an industrial-ambient treatment that can't catch my attention at all. The White EP consists of only new tracks, barren and bleached compositions with only sporadic use of electric instruments or vocals. It suits you or it doesn't, but I think it's wonderful.


Album - The Grey EP
Year of release - 2004

1. The lodge (dismantled)
2. Odal (nothing remix)
   

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Album - The White EP
Year of release - 2008

1. The isle of summer
2. Birch black
3. Hollow stone
4. Pantheist
5. Birch white
6. Sowilo rune
7. Summerisle reprise
   

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Agalloch - two EPs

Band/artist - Agalloch
Genre(s) - Neofolk-metal
Origin - United States of America (Portland, OR)

Up to a couple of months ago I ignored Agalloch completely due to soaring popularity. At the time it felt too much like jumping on the bandwagon and I'm no athlete. Quite glad I tried it out in the end. Haughm and company sound much like a neofolk-ensemble switched to metal yet keeping a lot of old influences. This results in some bleak and atmospheric music, thematically centered around negative feelings and love for nature, but too restrained to be conveniently labeled black, doom or folk metal. I figure that if you're looking for their albums you can probably find them all over the instawebs so when it comes to uploading, I'm going for the EPs. Of Stone, Wind and Pillor shows off the trademarks of their style, like their remarkable twin-guitar approach - one electric and one acoustic - and their penchant towards acoustic and ambient passages. Tomorrow Will Never Come is a two-track release consisting of an alternative version of A Celebration for the Death of Man, and a new, very desolate-sounding neofolk track with spoken-word samples.


Album - Of Stone, Wind and Pillor
Year of release - 2001

1. Of stone, wind and pillor
2. Folorium viridium
3. Haunting birds
4. Kneel to the cross
5. A poem by Yeats
   

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Album - Tomorrow Will Never Come
Year of release - 2003

1. Death of man (version III)
2. Tomorrow will never come
   

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Mar de Grises - The Tatterdemalion Express

Band/artist - Mar de Grises
Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Chile
Album - The Tatterdemalion Express
Year of release - 2004

Of all doom-death albums I have posted or aim to post in the future, The Tatterdemalion Express by Mar de Grises is one of the most interesting ones. The band is Chilean, and while I'm usually hesistant with South-American extreme metal - it just doesn't seem to fit their climate, you know, nor their fiery, love-for-life temperament - this is an excellent find. It's very dark stuff, definitely in the vein of the "Big Three", UK doom-death originators, but somehow more menacing, more mysterious, more tormented. Mentioning the relative busy-ness of the music, the careful attention to detail, the beautiful piano accents or the song structures that literally collapse under their own weight (check out To See Saturn Fall to see what I mean), doesn't seem enough to fully explain the unique atmosphere presented here, but then I don't know what would. This is doom, squared.

1. El otro
   
2. To see Saturn fall
3. Storm
4. Recklessness
5. Self portrait no. 1
6. Be welcome oh hideous hell
7. Onirica
   

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Esoteric - Subconscious Dissolution into the Continuum

Band/artist - Esoteric
Genre(s) - Psychedelic funeral doom
Origin - United Kingdom
Album - Subconscious Dissolution into the Continuum
Year of release - 2004

In the first seconds it seems like this could become a quite regular doom metal release... darned heavy, with fragile, unsettling melody lines. Then, and this is so slickly done, within the first minute or so the song gets progressively denser in the bass register, the melodies shrink into the background and when the grunts kick in you suddenly find yourself in utter funeral hell. Proves to be a challenge! It is, really. Esoteric play a very manipulative brand of oppressive funeral doom that is difficult to listen to unperturbed. Especially the psychotic double vocals of distorted grunts and screeches will bring a chill to your bones. With Subconscious Dissolution into the Continuum, Esoteric are able to transmit their overwhelming darkness into their listeners' brains like I've barely seen before in the world of black and doom metal. May inflict permanent mental damage, but it's worth the experience.

1. Morphia
2. The blood of the eyes
3. Grey day
4. Arcane dissolution
   

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Anathema - Judgement

Band/artist - Anathema
Genre(s) - Atmospheric rock
Origin - United Kingdom
Album - Judgement
Year of release - 1999

Like Katatonia, Anathema used to be important doom band before crossing into unmetal territory and like Katatonia, they now play dark atmospheric rock. However, I think it is safe to say that Anathema is generally more detached and depressive, but their tracks can also seem more uniform than they really are as they're mostly centered around ethereal guitar harmonies that ooze distress and hopelessness. Their best songs are scattered quite evenly among their releases, Judgement was my choice only because on this one I know which ones they are! The title song (always the fucking title song!!) starts out with a decent main melody that steadily gains in intensity, then explodes in some wicked riffing. Anyone, Anywhere is a doomy song feauturing great interplay between guitars and piano, One Last Goodbye has some of the best vocal deliverances on the record and a beautiful solo to boot, and Wings of God is climactic gloom rock at its best. These last six words, methinks, are a great way to sum up the whole record.

1. Deep
2. Pitiless
3. Forgotten hopes
4. Destiny is dead
5. Make it right (F.F.S.)
6. One last goodbye
7. Parisienne moonlight
8. Judgement
9. Don't look too far
10. Emotional winter
11. Wings of God
12. Anyone, anywhere
13. 2000 and gone
14. Transacoustic
    

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The Morningside - The Wind, the Trees and the Shadows of the Past

Band/artist - The Morningside
Genre(s) - Doom metal
Origin - Russia
Album - The Wind, the Trees and the Shadows of the Past
Year of release - 2007

This is the first release from a very new band in the melodic death-doom scene. The Morningside had the courage of releasing a full-length immediately without testing reactions with a demo first. They were not overconfident as it's proven to be a very impressive little (forty-minute) album and I'm not by far the only one to think so; ...Shadows of the Past has already been garnering a lot of respect for its highly convincing melancholia. It's not that heavy, but the melodies in both the true doom parts and the abundant acoustic passages are full of pain and mystic beauty. The best aspect is how the album only gets more spectacular towards the end. Essential for anyone who is not afraid of some elegance and fragility in his/her metal.

1. Intro
   
2. The wind
3. The trees
4. The shadows of the past
5. Outro
   

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