Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time Special Issue

SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

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cathedral The Ethereal Mirror

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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.

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PRESENTS

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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

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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

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

B

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

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penance

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

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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

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shape of despair Angels of Distress

SMAIL

rooted in the void. —ROD SMITH

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Witchfinder General, Death Penalty

—SCOTT KOERBER

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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.

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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

93

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

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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

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92 grief

91

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

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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

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ROWLAND

paradise lost

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89

celestial season Solar Lovers

D i s p l e a s e d (1 9 9 5 )

When this Dutch lot first arrived on the scene in 1991 (releasing their first demo a year later), they provided a unique twist on the gray cloud of doom that very obviously back-lined their inspirations. My Dying Bride had already minimized the shock that followed with the appearance of violins, acoustics and keyboards, but by the time Celestial Season arrived with their fully realized second album, they had incorporated a stoner/desert rock influence alongside the string-sawing of violinists Maaike Aarts and Jiska ter Bals.

The weeping wail of the ladies’ classical instruments, seamlessly meshed into the catchy thunder of their allegiance to both Paradise Lost and Kyuss, made Solar Lovers a triumph.

And with the hop-along, bass-heavy gallop of “Will You Wait for the Sun?” and wah-wah wailing on “Dancing to a Thousand Symphonies” proved that doom had dimensions beyond molasses-paced, English breakfast tri-tones.

The band did end up wandering further into the desert than Walter White on subsequent releases, going so far as to title 1997 follow-up Orange (complete with iconic amp image comprising the cover), but the massive warmth of Solar Lovers remains fresh and vital 20 years down the road. And the cover of Ultravox’s “Vienna” still rules!

MY TOP 5 REBECCA

VERNON SubRosa

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Wolvserpent, Perigaea Antahkarana Corrupted,

ubRosa broke up in 2011. Lucky for us, Garten Der Unbewusstheit it didn’t take. Encouraged by violinists Sarah Pendleton and Kim Pack, frontEyehategod, Confederacy of woman, guitarist and principal songwritRuined Lives er Rebecca Vernon made the call to reform the Ramesses, We band with a new rhythm section less than a year Will Lead You to later. The eventual outcome was More Constant Glorious Times Than the Gods. Like a lot of albums on this list, Red Bennies, the Salt Lake City-based quintet’s third marks Famil the first time the band’s constituent parts moved together in perfect synch. What most sets it apart are the ways they carry us well beyond doom metal’s usual scope to the troubles of a wider world. (Vernon also hits love—most notably in tandem with QstandsforQ’s Jason McFarland on “The Usher.”)

Vernon’s command of folk music’s lyrical strategies and understanding of human nature are evolved enough that she can attack unmet needs (“Fat of the Ram”) and delusional corruption (“Ghosts of a Dead Empire”) with maximum force without ever sounding partisan or preachy. Bonus: The album is sonically fucking magnificent, thanks in no small part to bassist Christian Creek and drummer, co-producer and engineer Andy Patterson, as well as mixing and mastering engineer (Marduk bassist, too!) Magnus Andersson. —ROD SMITH

88

subrosa More Constant Than the Gods

Prof ound Lore (2013 )

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

10  PHOTO BY HELEN LEESON

87

mournful congregation Monad of Creation

84

86

burning witch

warhorse

We i rd Tru th (2 0 0 5 )

As Heaven Turns to Ash

Mournful Congregation’s stock-in-trade is long-form funeral doom. While the South Australians might not have fathered the genre, its evolution ran parallel to their own, having recorded their demo before the release of Thergothon’s Stream From the Heavens (1994), Esoteric’s Epistemological Despondency (1994) and Skepticism’s Stormcrowfleet (1995). These bands sound distinct, but share a creative kinship, stretching doom metal’s concentration and pulling it into yogic meditation on loss. The Monad of Creation is a sparse epic, so slow it’s like they kept time by matching the rise and fall of the tide.

Damon Good’s über-death growl haunts—rather than dominates— the record; his verses are all throat and shapeless. It’s the textural changes that tie Mournful Congregation’s compositions together; the fundamentalist solemnity is broken up by passages of quiet beauty and understated melancholy. This is a record that rewards those who return to it, and in turn punishes the casual listener, the uncommitted.

In taking lyrical excerpts from Russian occultist Madame H.P. Blavatsky’s writings and Homer’s The Iliad, Mournful Congregation were aiming high and shooting for the profound. And subsequent releases show no sign that their creative ambition is contracting any time soon. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

Easily among the most criminally underrated slabs of primal, planetrumbling stoner doom this side of Holy Mountain, Warhorse’s sole full-length, As Heaven Turns to Ash, is a grim, hazyeyed cult classic that still reeks of brimstone, bong smoke and burning tube amp some 13 years since its release.

Together, guitarist Todd Laskowski vocalist/bassist Jerry Orne (both of Desolate) and vocalist/drummer Mike Hubbard (Gozu), sear with the bluesy, predatory savvy of Eyehategod and (by default) Iron Monkey.

Apocalyptic, at times suffocating, As Heaven Turns to Ash is saturated in raw, tar-thick riffing, monolithic walls of distortion and enough bottom end to level a nation. But while Warhorse clearly lived by repetition as ritual credo of audio catharsis, the short-lived trio’s near hour-long composition never grows stale. Instead, the record plays out in near cinematic fashion. It shifts from dark, harrowing dirges to lumbering, Sleep-y, resin-coated grooves and dusty, fuzzed-out “Planet Caravan”-ian desert jams, often within the same track (“Doom’s Bride,” “Amber Vial”). Add to that Orne’s harsh, sandpapery vocal cadence, corrosive prose and a dismal piano closer, and you have yourself a true barn burner of a record. Own this.

85

Southern Lord (200 1)

revelation Salvation’s Answer Ri se Ab o ve ( 19 9 1)

Doom metal is as ubiquitous in Maryland as crab cakes, and countless attempts have been made to document the Free State’s potent subculture, but workmanlike acts like Iron Man, Internal Void and Wretched always seem to get lost in the shuffle. All of these groups are good-to-great, but if you’re looking for the purest representation of Maryland doom, Salvation’s Answer is absolutely the way to go.

Revelation’s debut—following a series of demos and an appearance on Rise Above’s label-defining Dark Passages compilation—has all of the makings of a “lost classic.” Revelation borrow a page (and a band name!) from Trouble’s Psalm 9 by mixing classical doom and progressive elements, which is most notable on the album’s second half. Sure, “Paradox” is a dull blemish and the mix does the band no favors, but singer/guitarist John Brenner is an absolute genius when it comes to writing palate-cleansing bridges: the incendiary solos on “Images of Darkness” and “Poets and Paupers” are enough to smite all non-believers and convert the rest of the heathen horde. —NICK GREEN

—LIZ CIAVARELLA-BRENNER

11

Crippled Lucifer

So u t her n Lo r d (1998)

Some of the great albums on this list are occasionally comforting, even soothing in their downcast glories. Not Burning Witch. Not ever. Crippled Lucifer is trashy, populated less with songs and more with bloated, canting corpses bursting with ragged red pustules and twitching, puckered sores. It’s hard to imagine any of this music could have been made in a studio, but easy to smell it splashing against the walls of a ratty basement club where there’s as much opiate brown as booze flowing through the crowd’s communal veins. Even the title of this collection conveys an image of evil made uglier by physical corruption—not sleek and sumptuous, but hobbled and malformed.

Unlike the tempo-challenged meanderings laid down by later incarnations Asva and Khanate, Burning Witch established comprehensible (if sluggish) beats through every track. G. Stuart Dahlquist heaves out buckets of curdled bass, while Stephen O’Malley’s guitar tone pukes corrupted chords from sickened amps, sounds that congeal around ankles rather than carry through the air. Edgy 59 lights the whole mess on fire with his spitted-swine gibbering—dank and rancid, a forest fire over a toxic dump—that sounds like a semi-conscious outpouring of shame and disappointment. For this abomination, witches will burn. —DANIEL LAKE

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81

skepticism

cathedral

Alloy

The Carnival Bizarre

R e d S tr e a m (2 0 0 8 )

Skepticism are the Finnish masters of funeral doom, pioneering the style along with fellow countrymen Thergothon.

While the latter enjoy a more kvlt “what if they never broke up” afterlife, Skepticism continued on to spread their eternal bummer across the underground.

Alloy, their most recent album (and that’s been a minute), shows that they’re still ruling the genre.

The most oppressive element of Alloy is not the crawling guitar work, but the overbearing organ, whose droning march is part of the reason why funeral doom is called such. At the beginning of “Antimony” and the middle of “March October,” it’s the dominant instrument, and you almost wish for the comparatively mellow guitars to come back.

Nope—this is your funeral, but it sure as hell ain’t your trial.

Tracks like “The Curtain” and closer “Oars in the Dusk” also show a My Dying Bride influence at work, where Skepticism picks up ever so—ever so— slightly. Matti Tilaeus still commands an impressive growl, and imagining him and the rest of the band in drab funeral garb—which they wear live—gives Alloy even more grandiosity, further separating Skepticism from their lesser imitators. —ANDY O’CONNOR

MY TOP 5 JANI

KEKARAINEN Skepticism

Paradise Lost, Lost Paradise Cathedral, Forest of Equilibrium Unholy, From the Shadows Anathema, “They Die/ Crestfallen” 7-inch Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath

Ear ache ( 19 95 )

Cathedral’s third is a contrarian beast in that it’s the quintessential doom metal party record. A tantalizing paradox, for sure, but then The Carnival Bizarre is not even the only doom metal party record in existence; its predecessor, ’93’s The Ethereal Mirror, provided material evidence that Cathedral’s sound was no longer anchored in the funereal treacle that made their debut Forest of Equilibrium such a genre touchstone. But on Carnival, Cathedral sound truly free to fter staggering through express a perverse joie de vivre in bal2002’s lukewarm Let Us ancing the macabre with consummate Prey and the acrimonihook-driven songcraft.

Lee Dorrian’s lyric sheet still reous lineup changes that mains 100 percent on-message, offering preceded 2004’s We Live (which an expansive treatment of doom’s most featured the debut of ex-Sourcelebrated muses, such as classic British vein/13 guitarist Liz Buckingham), horror, the Knights Templar, cosmoElectric Wizard returned to logical ruminations on destroy minds and reap souls death and so forth; and Gaz Jennings’ guitar with Witchcult Today. Though MY TOP 5 does its damndest to the songs are inspired by the GAZ bolster doom’s wall of usual assortment of Lovesleep with jumbo riffs, craftian literature and occult R ise Abov e (2007 ) even invoking the realextitty flicks, cuts like “Satanic life Tony Iommi to Cathedral/ Rites of Drugula,” the title offer a guest solo on Death Penalty the irresistible “Utotrack and especially “Dunwich” feature the kind of righteous Trouble, pian Blaster.” Carnival pop hooks that rarely eluded the Wizard’s immortal forefathers Psalm 9 might not be Cathein Black Sabbath.

Trouble, dral’s best album— Whether or not this had anything to do with the fact that the The Skull few would argue against record marked the band’s first collaboration with Liam Watson, Forest of Equilibrium in Saint Vitus, Saint Vitus the Grammy-winning producer who engineered and mixed the that respect—but it possesses a strange White Stripes’ multiplatinum Elephant, is anyone’s guess. Either Witchfinder magic in that it’s the General, way, Witchcult Today stands as Electric Wizard’s finest release one you find yourself Death Penalty since their millennial dirge classic and Decibel Hall of Fame pillar playing the most.

Dream Death, Dopethrone. Though many would loudly insist it’s blasphemous to “HUGGY BEAR, OH Journey Into suggest, some of us even prefer Witchcult to that time-honored YEAH!” — JONATHAN Mystery

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electric wizard Witchcult Today

JENNINGS

doom chestnut. —J. BENNETT

HORSLEY

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mindrot R el a pse (1995 )

Finnish doom metal’s answer to Beherit’s unhinged, avant-garde misanthropy, Unholy were lots of things: gloomy, bizarre, depressive and ritualistic, just to name just a few. While debut LP From the Shadows featured statuesque death/doom versions of the band’s black-tempered demo material, sophomore trip The Second Ring of Power announced Unholy as a genre unto itself (black doom) by decree of the band’s wizardry at merging vast, monumental doom riffs with all the diversity, eccentricity and occult trappings of their moody back catalog.

The album’s title track opens like a tempest already in full stride, a bulldozer of glowing riffs and majestic keys conjuring spaciousness and magnificence one moment, then terror and sorrow the next, a hypnotic balance of moods that defined The Second Ring of Power and ensured Unholy’s intrigue amongst fans from either side of the black/doom divide. Song titles like “Serious Personality Disturbance And Deep Anxiety” speak to the album’s deranged, psychotic nature, while “Air” spins mystical keys, soaring riffs and despondent female vocal accompaniment into what sounds like a Peaceville Three-era anthem recorded in the basement of Helvete.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So Sir Isaac Newton tells us, and though he could not have had Orange County’s Mindrot in, uh, mind when he formulated his third law of motion, the theory certainly helps to explain how the same picturesque setting that spawned Laguna Beach and the flagship series of the Real Housewives franchise could also (not-so-paradoxically?) spawn one of the hands-down greatest unsung purveyors of atmospheric death-addled doom metal, like, ever.

Take, for example, the band’s debut full-length Dawning—a sublime amalgamation of nasty, confrontational riffage and ethereal, keyboard strings-dappled soundscapes that vests songs like “Anguish,” “Withersoul,” “Across Vast Oceans” and “Internal Isolation” with legitimacy, power and, yeah, a profound sadness. (By the way, that opening sample—“What’s the feeling now?”; “Something’s gonna happen…”—widely rumored to have been cribbed from X-Files, is actually taken from the similarly underappreciated 1991 David Duchovny/Mimi Rogers film The Rapture.)

And where’d that fount of sorrow stem from? That’s a question only the members of Mindrot themselves could answer, obviously, but maybe they’d had a collective premonition that the band would eventually break up when drummer Evan Kilbourne quit to join ska-punkers Save Ferris (!)

—SCOTT KOERBER

—SHAWN MACOMBER

unholy

The Second Ring of Power Ava n tg a r d e (1 9 9 4 )

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Dawning

while heaven wept

Vast Oceans Lachrymose Cr u z Del Su r ( 20 0 9 )

As grandiose and elegiac as its cover art (John Martin’s iconic Christ Stilleth the Tempest painting), While Heaven Wept’s third LP is a master class in American power doom. This is heavy music for every occasion—vast, dense, triumphant and sorrowful all at once.

Want riffs that are simultaneously crushing and ornate? Check out the 16-minute epic “The Furthest Shore”—it’s the sound of Bach fronting Fates Warning. Need something to sing aloud as you stare longingly at an airplane that’s carrying your one true love to a faraway land? Slap on “Vessel,” an all-time classic with an earworm chorus that was born to be drunkenly wailed by arm-in-arm metalheads.

Vast Oceans Lachrymose is as ambitious as doom gets before it crosses into the magical realm of power metal. Its command is derived from several factors—the fluid, compelling music of songwriter Tom Phillips; the highly emotive performances of lead vocalist Rain Irving; the dynamic, underrated rhythm section of Jim Hunter (bass) and Trevor Schrotz (drums)—but ultimately, it’s important because it’s a reminder that light can still exist in the dark. —MATT SOLIS

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the 3 and the mortal Tears Laid in Earth Head No t F o u n d (1994 )

Probably one of the least obvious picks, the debut from these five guys and one girl is, nonetheless, as gloomy, melancholic and downcast as any of the more obvious Doom-with-a-capital-D albums here.

With a rich, warm guitar sound that’s soft sonic fur, and the patient and pensive vocals of Kari Rueslåtten, Tears Laid in Earth takes its time laying out sheets upon sheets of some of the most despondent moods ever put to record—cold as the coldest black metal; haunting and desolate as the slowest funeral doom; exotic like something from an early 4AD album.

And that’s the thing—it’s never obvious, seeming to draw from everywhere and nowhere at once. Its guitar sound could be that of some Satanic Norwegian horde; its earthy tones could have been lifted from that first Anathema album; its inferences that all in life is abandonment and emptiness are ideas funeral doom bands base entire discographies on.

But it’s none of that, exactly, and is, in fact, much more. It boasts heavenly bodies of celestial melody and compelling passages by the dozens. “Why So Lonely,” “Death-Hymn,” “Salva Me”—point the laser anywhere on the CD and you’re instantly transported.

But absorbing the whole thing in a dark room, without distraction, is the best way to get you where 3rd and the Mortal want you to go. It is, in a word, magic.

—JEFF WAGNER

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church of misery

The Second Coming Di w phalan x ( 2004 )

MY TOP 5 KARL

SIMON

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the gates of slumber Conqueror P r o f o u n d L o re (2 0 0 8 )

ex-The Gates of Slumber/ Wretch

bsessed with the Obsessed, brains filled with pulp schlock from Howard, LoveBlack Sabbath, Black Sabbath craft, T.H. White, et al, the three hairy behemoths stride confidently through Saint Vitus, V prehistory, laying waste to everything in their Trouble, The Skull path. When bands talk about their axes, one usually assumes they speak of guitars, but with Gates Candlemass, From the of Slumber, who the hell knows? These barbarians 13th Sun wield theirs like weapons, hacking away at their muCathedral, sic with the sort of precision normally reserved for Forest of knocking down trees.

Equilibrium Conqueror doesn’t reinvent the wheel (hell, this stuff feels like it preceded its first invention), but it delivers the doom like it had been there all along. If Black Sabbath was the monolith that evolved heavy blues into heavy metal, then Conqueror is the bone that ape used to kill ape. It’s the sort of timeless stuff that Conan used to rock on his first Walkman before charging into battle.

By 2008, the form had been explored pretty thoroughly. What made the Gates of Slumber so special is that they made it feel (if not exactly smell) fresh. —JEFF TREPPEL

A bunch of original, rocking doom songs that “hate trend… hate corporate attitude… hate the word ‘stoner,’” all focused on serial killers, with an obscure ’70s rock cover thrown in for good measure. The blueprint is pretty simple and—considering the preponderance of serial killer salutation and retro-obsession in the world of metal—that Japan’s Church of Misery thrived while sticking to these brass tacks is an indication that all the gimmicky bullshit in the world doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if the tunes don’t slay. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, as it were, and on their second full-length (well, third, as intended debut Vol. 1 was originally abandoned because it didn’t stick to the above formula), Church of Misery definitely swing all over the place.

The quartet’s bluesy fire and uptempo doom is as sharp as a scalpel as it is loose as the business end of a pair of thrift shop bell-bottoms. Detroit rock power meets punked-up doom metal meets SoCal beach boogie with darkened themes, screaming solos and psychedelic noise washes, creating an album that perfectly celebrates rocking and good-time drunken pinball parties, as well as the bad times and misfortune of those who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

14  PHOTO BY SCOTT KINKADE

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scald

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eyehategod Dopesick

C e n tu ry Me d i a (1 9 9 6 )

Dopesick represents Eyehategod at the height of their sludgy, druggy, strungout powers. There’s the infamous glassbreaking intro, where Mike Williams injured his hand in the process and bled all over the studio, freaking out the owner of Side One Studios. If that wasn’t enough proof that sludge shouldn’t be made by nice churchgoing boys, then what comes after it—the doom-punk assault of “My Name Is God (Eye Hate You)”—should lay any further qualms to rest. That is, if you’re capable of resting after a bender like this.

“Dixie Whiskey” is EHG’s signature song, Jimmy Bower and Brian Patton’s grooves mixing a lawless southern party vibe with the madness only Sabbath Bloody Sabbath-era Ozzy’s been privileged to feel. It’s the credo of “drink more to get rid of a hangover” made into riffs. What’s also important to remember is that Eyehategod were touched by the (now-fallen?) lords Ginn and Rollins, and that hardcore spirit is evident in the album’s fastest songs, “Dogs Holy Life” and “Peace Thru War (Thru Peace and War).” Williams and the boys are cleaner and still besting their imitators, but they’ll never capture the deranged vibe of Dopesick again. —ANDY O’CONNOR

Foundations of Burden Pr o fo u n d L o r e ( 20 14)

Will of Gods Is a Great Power

Eager gemologists can mine for diamonds in Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds Meta l Agen (1996) State Park. Luckily, metalheads don’t Months before we finally jammed it, have to venture so far to find the preI was telling friend and fellow Decibel cious stone that is Pallbearer. Heavwriter Scott Koerber about Scald, this ily lauded debut Sorrow and Extinction obscure Russian band from the ’90s that found the Arkies on Year End gushlists I’d discovered on the internet one fatein 2012. Two years later, the unlikely ful day. Scott recognized the name, he Decibel cover stars returned with Foundations of Burden, one of the best doom thought, but the details of where/when/ how were lost in the vacuum of time. I’d metal albums to ever call America the bring them up just about evBeautiful home. ery time we corresponded, Guitarists Brett Campbut he dragged his feet on bell and Devin Holt spear MY TOP 5 checking them out. the heaviest of hearts with BRETT Then one day I ended up their caterwauling lead-riff on opener “Worlds Apart.” in his car with the reissue of Will of Gods Is a Great Power It’s like the best of Solitude Pallbearer on me. I put it in without Aeturnus with a Juhani While Heaven a word. The wind blew Palomäki songwriting Wept, Sorrow of around in Scott’s Volvo credit. On most occasions, the Angels for a while, then that openCampbell isn’t the most Asunder, regimented singer, but ing riff from “Night Sky” A Clarion Call came on. Scott was frantic, what the frontman lacks in like, “What is this?! Who is Colosseum, pure technicality, he makes Chapter 3: this?!” I told him, “Dude, up for in raw emotion. His Parasomnia it’s Scald.” Apparently, open-shirted presence can he’d heard Scald on a comp also be felt on mid-point Deadbird, The Head and crusher “Watcher in the (or something) back in the Heart Dark” and overcast closer ’96. That mournfully epic “ Vanished,” where he riffage sent him right back My Dying Bride, croons regally alongside through time. The record, The Angel and the Dark River massive riff columns and though, had always eluded funeral beats. While the him—this was pre-file cover art could’ve been sharing, when obscurity still meant something. But Scald had on any Malodorous Mangled Innards traveled through time, had overtaken Records release, its sophomoric execume to find its way, finally, into Scott’s tion doesn’t detract from Pallbearer’s possession. Yes, will of gods is a great immediate and long-term charm. power indeed. —DUTCH PEARCE —CHRIS DICK

CAMPBELL

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kyuss

Blues for the Red Sun Dali ( 19 9 2)

Sure, we rightly inducted Kyuss’s ensuing release, Welcome to Sky Valley, into our Hall of Fame, but it was Blues for the Red Sun that featured the band’s strongest lineup (singer John Garcia, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Nick Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork) and became a genre-defining album. Stoner rock, desert doom—whatever you want to call it—it hit puberty with Blues. Here, Kyuss introduced a new kind of heavy, akin to drag-racing through the Coachella Valley in a monster truck with plenty of substances to keep them company.

Standouts like “Thumb,” “Green Machine” and “50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)” channeled the astral voodoo of Hawkwind and Blue Cheer alongside the barrel-chested brawn of hard rock. Garcia’s bitter snarl and cynical lyrics mirrored the desert’s powers of alienation, but the diabolical fuzz Homme unleashed by playing his downtuned guitar through a bass amp became the cornerstone of the stoner-doom sound.

The salacious union of those riffs with Bjork’s and Oliveri’s densely textured rhythms burned hot enough to give listeners a contact high and spawn legions of imitators who are still under the influence. —JEANNE FURY

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pagan altar

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Bobby Liebling and Pentagram weren’t the only doom godfathers with a severe case of deferred launch. Though Pagan Altar’s one-and-done 1982 self-titled demo was methodically duplicated and traded amongst underground enthusiasts, the band’s solitary tome wouldn’t receive full-length treatment for another 16 years, when, in 1998, those original demo recordings were finally snatched from the dustbin and released as-is (all original recordings were used—the material was remastered only) under the album title Volume 1.

Recorded years before debut albums from Trouble, Saint Vitus or Candlemass, Volume 1 conjured eponymous Sabbath gloom and the hazy rock of, say, Deep Purple, an approach unlike any of Pagan Altar’s early ’80s NWOBHM contemporaries (probably the reason the band was so universally ignored).

Highlights: eerie analog organs; an intro conjuring the archangel Samael; frontman Terry Jones’ witchy vocals, calling to mind a distraught Udo Dirkschneider gesturing in the dark while sermonizing on blood sacrifice; black masses; everlasting fires; and all the dreary subject matter that doom metal so often reveres.

very element of Acid Bath’s two-decade-old debut is deep, devious and unsettling. From its eerie John Wayne Gacy cover art and its cold, Spike Cassidy-production, to its cataclysmic rhythms and twisted scriptures, the record spews forth 70 of the densest, most maladjusted, sinister minutes of bluesy bayou When the bleakness ever composed.

Formerly Golgotha, and boastKite String Pops ing the now-iconic lineup of guiR otten (1994 ) tarists Mike Sanchez and Sammy Duet, drummer Jimmy Kyle, vocalist Dax Riggs and late bassist Audie Pitre, Acid Bath defied all genre confines with a bastardized audio concoction of punk, doom, death, thrash and chronic disillusion. On Kite String, they didn’t just pen music—they conjured a demented, meticulously arranged, psychologically taxing soundtrack for the criminally insane (see “Dr. Seuss Is Dead”); a sort of harmonious discord where grisly, Goliath-toned riffs and swampy Southern misery grooves lurch into elegant acoustic cascades of melancholic serenity and sickening spoken word diatribes with the paranoid urgency of a bad acid trip (“Screams of the Butterfly,” “The Bones of Baby Dolls”).

It’s all swathed in the clean, warbled resonance of Riggs’ poetic alchemy. At once graceful and grotesque, his imperious expression is that of a cult leader: icy, dire, detached, unstable, his diseased Morrison-on-meth verses borne of drugs, death and societal decay. Unmatched by design, WTKSP is a vital and timeless Louisiana export.

The piercing feedback that begins and ends Paso Inferior is what passes for ambience on Corrupted’s debut full-length.

Over the course of a single track, the band never relents as riffs whine and howl, macerate and carve through 40plus minutes of aural sadism.

Famously known for their refusal to give interviews and multilingual lyrics, the Japanese four-piece’s notoriety stems less from obscurity and more from their resolute dedication to punishing themselves and everyone near their grasp. This is not only an endurance test for the listener, but the band as well, forcing a continual level of volume and intensity without a single restful detour into experimental sections or acoustic interludes. No, if you make it through the entire raw, unforgiving trek, you can expect some fist-sized welts.

And regardless of wherever this was actually recorded, by the time you’ve become fully immersed, you may begin to see a room, some sweltering basement buried away from the sun. A place built for this and other horrors that rarely make it back out into the world.

—SCOTT KOERBER

—LIZ CIAVARELLA-BRENNER

—SHANE MEHLING

Volume 1

Or a c l e (1 9 9 8 )

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acid bath

corrupted Paso Inferior

F r i gi d i t y ( 1997 )

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solstice New Dark Age

M i s a n thr o p y (1 9 9 8 )

When Candlelight released Solstice’s Lamentations in 1994, the world wasn’t terribly interested in traditional, epic (no-keyboards) doom. Four years later, black metal’s label and media dominance continued to overshadow the Brits on New Dark Age, even with vocalist Morris Ingram, guitarist Hamish Glencross and drummer Rick Budby representing the band’s new lineup. The shift from Candlelight to Misanthropy (home to sales darling Burzum) also didn’t shed much light on Solstice’s dark corner.

Nevertheless, New Dark Age, then and now, is proof positive that British doom could (and would) represent many forms, all exhibiting their own MY TOP 5 quality. The difference HAMISH between Solstice and most peers was their decidedly Anglo approach. ex-Solstice Few releases since have Black Sabbath, embodied England (and Paranoid its illustrious history)

GLENCROSS

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like New Dark Age. The Candlemass, f all the funeral doom bands out there, Worship album’s a metaphoric Nightfall probably have the most indisputable cred: drummer/ cup of tea. It’s a view Crowbar, vocalist Max Varnier actually offed himself not too long into a time when great Obedience after recording this, giving Last Tape Before Doomsday deeds were done by liThru Suffering an unfortunately literal title. He’s not the first musician to have onhearted men. New Paradise Lost, Dark Age is a castle in committed suicide, but rarely has the music so perfectly matched Gothic the mist. the mindset. As one might imagine, this is some pretty depressing Saint Vitus, V Ingram, in particumusic made by some pretty depressed people. lar, is impressive. His You could measure this tempo in beats per hour. No respite, vocals, intrinsically no catharsis, no dynamics. This German outfit just trudges on until broad and ardent, are pivotal to Solthey can’t go any further. This is despair in musical form, not prettied stice’s power. And his trill treatment of certain words is also a nice—if unexup or hidden behind anything. It’s a rough listen, no getting around pected—touch. Though the album is it. It’s also totally honest. For better or worse, Last Tape depicts what a tad long (65 minutes all told), there are it’s like inside the head of someone who’s suicidally depressed. Not a timeless pieces throughout. Choice cuts pretty place, but as someone’s last will and testament, it makes for a are “The Sleeping Tyrant,” “Hammer of totally unique piece of music. Rest in peace, “Mad Max”; your epitaph Damnation,” ballad “Blackthorne” and the towering “Cromlech.” —CHRIS DICK speaks for itself. —JEFF TREPPEL

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worship Last Tape

Before Doomsday Impaler o f Tr en d ie s (1999)

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melvins

Gluey Porch Treatments A l c he m y (1 9 8 6 )

myThedying bride Dreadful Hours

If you buy into that whole “degrees of Peacevi lle ( 20 0 1) separation” BS, then doom, thanks largely to (the) Melvins, is just a degree y the time My Dying Bride entered Academy Studio to separated from grunge. Both genres used record their seventh album, they’d already played a major role drop tunings and leaned heavily on Sabin suturing gothic sensibilities to one of the death/doom virus’ bath influences. These Aberdeen, WA many faces, gone way out on a limb with 1998’s 34.788%... misfits first introduced their snail-paced thudola on Gluey Porch Treatments, for Complete, alienated half a herd of fans with the same (now revered like the most part eschewing their speed fucking Stonehenge), pulled back hard with The Light at the End of the jags of the past. At a time when World, and taken a two-year sabbatical—the Yorkshiremetal bands were increasing based quintet’s first significant break since forming in 1990. their BPM, Melvins were getMY TOP 5 Produced by guitarist Andrew Craighan and MDB ting slow, low and freaky.

ANDREW engineer-for-life Mags, The Dreadful Hours deserved neiNot that these guys were ever really a metal band. But, man, ther the “return to form” tag the mini-masses saddled it they came up with some epic glawith nor the scorn that fans who’d actually dug 34.788% My Dying cial grinds. “Eye Flys,” “Heater heaped on it. Craighan, guitarist Hamish Glencross, Bride Moves and Eyes,” “Bitten Into vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe, bassist Adrian Jackson and Candlemass, Sympathy” and “Heaviness of Nightfall drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels (along with Bal Sagoth’s the Load” were so leaden back Jonny Maudling, who improvised all his keyboard parts in ’86, they left people scratchMorgion, ing their heads. Melvins even Among Majestic and helped nail the ideal vibe) simply turned their experiRuin turned an old Green River cut, mental bent in a different direction: making an extremely “Leech,” into a stone-footed Black Sabbath, rich, structurally perfect album that displays pretty much waltz. Their first-wave doom Paranoid every one of the band’s aspects and attributes in the best was so next-level that we’re only Isole, possible light… er, dark. Thirteen years and five albums now appreciating it for what it Bliss of Solitude was. —ADEM TEPEDELEN later, it’s still Stainthorpe’s favorite. —ROD SMITH Type O Negative, Bloody Kisses

B

CRAIGHAN

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khanate Khanate

So u t her n Lo r d (2 001)

If most doom bands write riffs that can topple cities, Khanate’s debut is music for the survivors, living in the sewers beneath the ruins. Stephen O’ Malley’s droning guitars claw ugly shapes into the dank air, then sputter feedback sparks like downed power lines. Bassist James Plotkin may as well be plucking human guts. Drummer Tim Wyskida breaks new ground in molasses-paced propulsion.

And the less said about Alan Dubin, the better—just know that you will never sleep again after you hear him whisper, “I put you on / Crawl inside” in “Skin Coat.”

Khanate drags us through long empty stretches, so we get time to think about what we’ve done. Unlike some of these guys’ other bands, Khanate structure their dirges impeccably. We can’t help but continue sloshing through the filth.

In a subgenre that valorizes plodding riffs and bad vibes, Khanate could out-plod and out-bum pretty much any band. And yet the extremity of Khanate goes far beyond its speed, far beyond the thick fog of negativity that shrouds every note. It’s simply some of the most deeply fucked music ever recorded. Khanate reach levels of discomfort that you shouldn’t be able to reach with sound alone. —ETAN ROSENBLOOM

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asunder

Works Will Come Undone P r o f o u n d L o r e (2 0 0 6 )

Someone somewhere wrote that there are no studio recordings of experimental music. By the time notes collide with mikes, the argument goes, any experiments have ultimately yielded complete songs in which all musical questions have been answered or calcified. Enter Works Will Come Undone, Asunder’s

great experiment in how far doom can be dragged from its simple drugged-rock roots. Behind all the clattering cymbals and huge chords lie scattered chunks of jazzy musicality and drone fascination.

Through performances and strange compositional choices, Asunder turn just another pair of 20-odd-minute songs into a kaleidoscopic mind trip.

“A Famine” and “Rite of Finality” are undoubtedly close kin—both tracks move forward languidly like mere apparitions of music, one voiced by those imperceptibly crescendoing moans, the other by Jackie Perez Gratz’s transcendent cello, before thunderous distortion and meaty roars steer the songs into much choppier waters. Inspired guitar lines work out some smoke-dark melodies and piercing feedback. Most confounding, though, are the 25 minutes of bassy throb that carry the end of the album. Lacking rhythm and riff, the listener is left to contemplate the great nothing while some ancient shamanic Jawa/droid marches nomadically across the channel field. —DANIEL LAKE

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count raven Storm Warning Act i ve ( 19 9 0 )

Throughout the years, many acts of varying note have employed the words “Storm Warning” as either a song or album title—Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, the Skatalites, Hunter Hayes, Elvis Costello and Girl Trouble, to name only a few—but not a single one has ever come close to matching (aurally

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or in spirit) the tempest Count Raven brought to their opus ominous debut. This is an exquisitely constructed, flawlessly executed collection of crashing thunder chords, hypnotic lead squalls, baleful horizons, serene center eyes, radiant vistas and—to depart from the title-bound callback allusions to theme and imagery for a merciful moment—splendidly modernized Master of Reality-isms.

Though subsequent releases such as Destruction of the Void (1992) and High on Infinity (1994) are chock full of equally engaging and energizing dark rock ‘n’ roll, as the sole album vocalist and founding member Chritus Linderson recorded with the band before cutting out to join Saint Vitus for C.O.D. (1992), Storm Warning remains an interesting—and thoroughly awesome— anomaly. When the conversation turns to Swedish doom, Count Raven might not get the same props as, say, Candlemass or Katatonia, but it’s high time that oversight was rectified. (Cue lightning strike.) —SHAWN MACOMBER

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Saint Vitus

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SST (1984 )

Scott Reagers is the greatest doom metal vocalist ever. There, I’ve said it in print.

Again. And why? The harrowing fright he conveys with that weird-ass voice, that’s why. His shivering, lurid, macabre Condemned delivery is every bit as wretched as Ozzy E a ra c he (1 9 9 1 ) Osbourne’s circa Vol. 4, and taken a few steps further into decay. If you listen to Arguably, the most fitting description of this strange and singular record is Reverend Bizarre, it’s clear that Albert “calculator doom.” Most fans tend to Witchfinder was as inspired by Reagers as he was the Oz. (Wino who?) focus on the mathletic components of 1991’s Condemned—that is, the mindThe rest of Saint Vitus aren’t half-bad fuck time signatures and Steve Shelton’s in conveying that morbid dread either. jaw-drop drumming. But there’s also a Armando Acosta and Mark Adams are pronounced Trouble-style doom vibe on not technically a precision-attack rhythm this debut effort, thanks to this North section, but they’re not supposed to be.

Carolina band’s dashiki-wearing vocalist, They bring the lurch—the dreadful, Scott Jeffreys. doleful fucking lurch. Then there’s guiOn Condemned, Jeffreys gives metarist Dave Chandler, whose wiry, audacious tone is basically a mirror image of lodic weight to the songs through the sheer force of musical inventiveness, not his stubbly, bandana-secured afro— to mention an impressive set of pipes. the guy looks as he sounds and sounds This music would not be Confessor as he looks. His “solos” are exercises in were it not for disparate instrumentascathing feedback-drenched disharmony, tion—chunky doom riffs, never even pretending to be progressive rock percusgreat guitar leads. That’s sion—coming together Saint Vitus and Saint Vitus MY TOP 5 in vice-tight arrangements. for you—knowingly ugly DAVE But don’t discount Jeffreys. and happily doomed to the Much of what makes this bone. The white and black music special is his superattack. The four horseSaint Vitus men of So-Cal sloth. The imposition of a traditional Black Sabbath, never-cool, never-trendy doom approach on untraBlack Sabbath representatives of losers, ditional music. It’s no surBlack Sabbath, druggies and degenerates prise that the band’s label, Paranoid Earache, which was scoring everywhere. big at the time with death Five songs, five inWitchfinder comparable hymns of metal and grind, had no idea General, Death Penalty purest, gloomiest doom. what to do with these doom In 1984, there were none visionaries. Were it released Witchfinder today, Condemned would still slower and none gloomier.

General, Friends of Hell sound ahead of its time.

The misery still shows.

anathema

confessor

Serenades

Peacevi lle ( 19 9 3 )

Glum Liverpudlians Anathema had a banner year in 1992. Witchhunt Records released their They Die/Crestfallen 7-inch, Peaceville issued The Crestfallen EP, and the compilation Peaceville Volume 4—on which Anathema appeared with a hauntingly brutal version of “Lovelorn Rhapsody”—showed that Yorkshire wasn’t the only place producing quality doom. The ex-Pagan Angel dudes took the genre to new heights on Serenades. “Lovelorn Rhapsody” returned, its woebegone heft no less impressive, but what followed—arguably one of the best doom tracks ever in “Sweet Tears”—had downtempo junkies in awe.

The Cavanagh brothers riffed awesome on “Sweet Tears.” They were no slouches on slow dance favorite “Scars of the Old Stream” and standout, fanfavorite killer “Sleepless” either. The duo’s brand of megaton-heavy melancholy and noisemaking would resonate throughout the community long after the Brits abandoned doom, too. Vocally, Darren White growled and howled like a vet, his grief-stricken odes to old flames and Mother Earth endearing and wholeheartedly convincing. But what Anathema displayed that peers My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost didn’t was a sense of adventure. Hard to believe, but the cute “J’ai Fait Une Promesse” and the 23-minute-plus ambient outro “Dreaming: The Romance” aren’t too far removed from where the group is today. —CHRIS DICK

CHANDLER

—BRENT BURTON

Candlemass, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

—JEFF WAGNER

20

57

noothgrush Erode the Person

Su per Ur i n e Mo n ke y (1998)

“But that NOOTH GRUSH on my TOOTHBRUSH… Well, some are nice, but he is not.” This one line from Dr. Seuss’s There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! inspired a band who took “not nice” to about the furthest degree possible.

Noothgrush are best known for a slew of splits, with Erode the Person being the only time they were able to focus their ire for a full-length. The trio, which featured one of the most granite-handed women in metal on drums, Chiyo Nukaga, erected riffs that seem to chew at their amp’s speaker cones while alternately making you feel like you just munched on a handful of change.

Their five originals, with dual covers of Pink Floyd tracks dragged through the tar pits, are vile odes to self-hatred and defeatism, delivered as slow, suffocating trauma. Even when the band goes into a brief swing beat on the title track, there is something nauseous and malignant that offers no reprieve before the mudslide that rolls on until the end.

Some bands are nice, but Noothgrush is not. And for that we’re grateful.

—SHANE MEHLING

56

cathedral

The Ethereal Mirror E ar ac he / Co l u m bi a (1 9 9 3 )

Cathedral’s 1991 Earache debut Forest of Equilibrium helped establish the parameters of modern doom by slowing down grindcore so listeners could meditate on its grimness. But on the band’s follow-up—and major label

debut—The Ethereal Mirror, singer Lee Dorrian, guitarists Gaz Jennings and Adam Lehan, and drummer Mark Wharton made it clear they weren’t beholden to their past. Mirror takes the glacial pace and dour moods of Forest and introduces a grab bag of influences, from the biker-rock of Motörhead to the peacock-stomp of Alice Cooper.

Songs often shifted shapes and curdled into creepy boogie-metal abstractions. They were fitting canvases for Dorrian to tap his inner King Diamond and lay down some nightmarish vignettes, which he delivered with colorful, daring abandon. Whether maniacally imploring, “Rise from the ashes of stagnation!” on “Ride,” or howling, “Ow! Yeah! Oooh! C’mon now!” on “Midnight Mountain” with the cheesy fervor of a ’70s classic rock frontman, he created a cadre of characters and became possessed by each. —JEANNE FURY

55

paul chain violet theatre In the Darkness Mi n o tau r o ( 19 86 )

Having spent his teenage days as cofounder of Italy’s weird-out horror metal troupe Death SS (he was 15 when Death SS formed in 1977), Paul Chain received a new calling in 1984: prophet

of all things slower, darker, drug-addled and heavily draped in mournful shades of liturgical Christian purple.

Following 1984’s Detaching From Satan EP, Chain’s debut solo LP, In the Darkness, was as strange, theatrical and lo-fi as his previous work with Death SS, but the new material was decidedly doomier, gloomier and categorically Sabbath-obsessed. With pal Sanctis Ghoram from Death SS providing demented vocals, and a cast of collaborators including Chain’s first wife, Laura Christ, In the Darkness covers much ground: Iommi-style riff-based dirges, creepy psychedelic ambience, and a smattering of sonic and aesthetic nods to L.A.’s late ’70s graveyard-obsessed death rock (45 Grave, Christian Death), which predates Celtic Frost’s genre-defying touchstone Into the Pandemonium. Chain’s unique vision for doom metal attracted many admirers, including Lee Dorrian and Wino, who would later collaborate with Chain on future releases. —SCOTT KOERBER

54

iron monkey Our Problem Ear ache ( 19 9 9)

I

t’s about an hour drive between Black Sabbath’s old practice space and Iron Monkey’s hometown of Nottingham. Judging by the diseased, muddy-gutter doom they released during their short career, things get pretty weird as you head north.

Iron Monkey’s second and final studio LP spiked the blues-infused sludge of their eponymous debut with crust punk tenacity. Already the U.K.’s answer to the fuck-your-noise-ordinance feedback-squealin’ outlaws in Eyehategod, Our Problem grooved harder than its predecessor, with infectious riffs skewered by the ghoulish rasps of the sadly departed

John Morrow. If you’ve never heard a throat freshly scraped raw with a double-shot of crushed glass and a hydrofluoric acid chaser, here’s your chance.

But right when you think you’ve got Our Problem pegged, “9 Joint Spiritual Whip” and “Omi Bozu (Wisdom of Choking)” slap the spliff out of your mouth and force-feed you 20 minutes of toxic drone. We’re talking staring into a puddle of cold diarrhea and looking for a reflection. We’re talking sounds that make you consider what crimes you’ve committed to deserve this—before you eagerly press repeat. —SEAN FRASIER

21

MY TOP 5 VINCE

VERKAY Evoken

Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath Vol. 4 Paradise Lost, Lost Paradise diSEMBOWLMENT, Transcendence into the Peripheral Thergothon, Stream from the Heavens

52

Cathedral, Forest of Equilibrium

katatonia

Dance of December Souls N o Fa shion (1993)

Long before black metal fell on shoegaze/goth with near-reckless abandon, Swedes Katatonia were listening to, comprehending the possibilities of, and writing spellbinding music inspired by the Cure, Joy Division, Catherine Wheel, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Tumuli Shroomaroom Nephilim, et al. At every opportunity P e a c e vi l l e (1 9 9 7 ) between ’92-’94, Anders “Blakkheim” These Welshmen are my favorite kind Nyström would extol the virtues of nonof Welshmen: they like psychedelics and metal music (specifically shoegaze and apparently have access to a didgeridoo. goth) and tirelessly explain the reasons Tumuli Shroomaroom, as you can probfor Katatonia’s remarkable distance ably tell from the name, takes you on a from almost every band on the planet. pretty epic trip. A trip with drugs! They When debut album Dance of Decembasically play desert rock, only the desber Souls appeared in the merciless winert is on Mars and also possibly glowter of 1993, great struggles were made ing purple, plus the cactuses have three to describe Katatonia. Black metal? Not mouths that speak Polish, Swahili and completely. Doom metal? Too evil. And Mandarin at the same time, what’s with all the clean guiand there’s a lizard you retar effects and rock motifs? ally don’t want to mess with.

Nobody had a clue. EventuMY TOP 5 Of course, that’s a desally, the descriptor “blackJONAS ert you wouldn’t want to doom” settled on Katatonia cross without some pretty and Dance of December Souls enlightened guides, and Aclike an unwelcome sore. But Katatonia rimony have their third eye it worked. “Gateways of Paradise Lost, Bereavement,” hit single wide open. Their sure hands Gothic lead their charges through “Without God,” the captiWinter, some seriously high gravity vating “Velvet Thorns (Of Into Darkness zones, but they make sure Drynwhyl)” and, especially, to never go off the path and “In Silence Enshrined” Candlemass, (what an ending!) had left into the waiting claws of the Nightfall sentient meteors. In the brained metalheads in abSolitude meantime, the listener gets solute rapture. Here was a Aeturnus, to inhale comet dust and band that, at its heart, was Into the Depths experience some expansive unequivocally metal, but ofof Sorrow vistas of inverted reality. It’s fered so much more. Dance My Dying Bride, fucking rad, dude. Just, you of December Souls is a must Turn Loose the know—watch out for the for any collection, physical Swans or digital.—CHRIS DICK lizard. —JEFF TREPPEL

53

acrimony

W

e’re talking about doom, right? But which doom? The rollicking British midlands doom? The funereal (or “funeral,” as a lot of people have Atra Mors it) doom? The bleak, washed-out, Pr o fo u n d Lo r e ( 20 12) post-industrial American kind?

No? How about the ever-elusive and highly-coveted “other” spot? That’s who Evoken are—their name comes from a Thergothon song, and if you need a point of comparison, you could do worse than diSEMBOWELMENT, but their sound is their own. It’s part crawling doom, part synthy Projekt goth, part acoustic textures that widen the scope, and a whole lot of stray ’80s tones forced to comply with the band’s aesthetic instead of the other way around.

Atra Mors offers some of the most dialed-in guitar tone you’ll find anywhere in non-mainstream metal (chorus? check; ’verb? check; delay? checkeckeckeckeck); it’s also got tunes that put me in the mind of Celtic Frost’s “Mesmerized” at 16 rpm. Over the years, I’ve had phases with a lot of doom bands, but few recent-model acts beckon me back into the fog as persistently as Evoken. You can get properly lost inside Atra Mors; it’s worth the trip. —JOHN DARNIELLE

51

evoken

RENKSE

22  PHOTO BY ROGER CADILLO

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49

trouble

deep purple

The Skull

Metal Blad e ( 1 985 )

Machine Head

Trouble took the darkness, the existential anxiety and riff prowess of Black We know, we know: If you hear the inSabbath, but turned it way the fuck up. tro to “Smoke on the Water” one more They exorcised Iommi’s rock and bootime… Bullshit! It ruled then, it rules gie tendencies, and doubled down on now and it’ll rule ’til the end of days. The heavier, darker, more melancholy guitar same goes for all of Machine Head— phrases. In large parts, this doubling, Deep Purple’s landmark sixth album of course, came from the genius guitardid nothing less than define doommonies cast by Bruce Franklin and Rick laden heavy metal. Riff-master Ritchie Wartell. Hearing those heart-tugging, Blackmore’s charismatic shredding and haunting guitar sirens, well-exemplified the rowdy rhythmic swing of bassist in tunes such as “Pray for the Dead” and Roger Glover, drummer Ian Paice and “Wickedness of Man,” are testimonies keyboardist Jon Lord gave the album an to the emotional power Trouble exuded. ominous intensity that felt freakishly, Every Tony needs a John, and Bruce thrillingly otherworldly. and Frank found favor in one of heavy Ian Gillan’s rebel yell and badass metal’s greats, Eric Wagner, who evokes toughness on headbangeveryone from Ian Gillan to ing classics “Highway Star,” Cream’s Jack Bruce. Where“Pictures of Home” and as Trouble was a doom MY TOP 5 album with lots of tempo “Space Truckin’” hit bull’sJEFF “OLY” eye for disaffected burnouts variety and jaw-droppingly everywhere. But it’s the pertasty, sometimes proggy axe work, The Skull was ilous thunder of “Smoke ex-Trouble/ on the Water” that’s best more measured and intenThe Skull associated with heralding tionally trudging—albeit Black Sabbath, the advent of doom— also packed with guitar wizThe Complete pretty literally, in fact. As ardry. Knowing how future Studio Albums the song’s lyrics document, albums had such pervasive 1970 -1978 Deep Purple were slated to psychedelic and classic rock (I’m cheating, but so what?) record Machine Head at influences, The Skull just Montreux Casino in Switmay be Trouble’s strongest YOB, Atma zerland, “but some stupid and most direct statement Type O with a flare gun burned the of how slow, ominous, headNegative, place to the ground” durcrushing heaviness can be Dead Again the perfect soundtrack to ing a Frank Zappa concert.

The Hidden themes of death, depresWas heavy metal’s baptism Hand, The sion, doubt and spiritual by fire a coincidence? We Resurrection of think not. —JEANNE FURY longing. —SHAWN BOSLER Whiskey Foote War n er Br o s. ( 19 72)

50

esoteric Epistemological Despondency

A e s the ti c D e ath (1 9 9 4)

To think that funeral doom could get this deranged, this fucked up, so early in the game is a bit mind-blowing. While many contemporaries were simply slowing down the tempos of their favorite Peaceville Three release, Birminghambased Esoteric debuted with this two-

disc, six-song doom colossus, featuring 90 minutes of hazy, despondent dirges that exalted strangeness and melancholy in equal measure.

Depressive and dense drug-trance journeys conjure pure isolation one minute, echoic alien grunts the next, and even the occasional flash of stoner groove à la Vol. 4-era Iommi absolutely faded on shrooms. But don’t let Epistemological’s experimental flourishes fool you—for all the seemingly irreconcilable elements one hears at first blush, this is a unified black hole of haunting and euphoric darkness that threatens to unravel your sanity upon repeated listening. Recorded at Rich Bitch Studios (host to Napalm Death’s Scum B-side, and preferred rehearsal room of Black Sabbath), Epistemological’s unrelenting darkness gave underground doom a huge shove into those funereal depths that the genre would obsessively ponder through the rest of the ’90s.

OLSON

—SCOTT KOERBER

23

Cathedral, The Guessing Game

46 yob

The Great Cessation Pr o fo u n d Lo r e ( 20 0 9 )

After four admirably consistent but unsung albums of loose ‘n’ low psychcrush, YOB faltered in 2006. When they returned with The Great Cessation just a few years later—an ironic title given their strong output since—the band positioned themselves to make hay by landing haymakers. Other doom of the day left ears wanting, and those ears wanted YOB. Feeling like barely half of its 12 minutes, “Burning the Altar” finds band leader Mike Scheidt largely abandoning his tenor chant for knuckle-whitening screeches and blighted death roars. A feint toward arrhythmic drone gives way to the true hurricane force of “The Lie That Is Sin” and its curious vocal melody. “Silence of Heaven” brings that real evil shit, with hanging sludgy tones and freakily processed vocals sinking fingers into your vitals, squeezing gleefully on organs you’ll wish you didn’t have. “Breathing From the Shallows” returns to living-heartbeat tempos, but compresses the atmosphere even further. And as breathtaking as the first four songs have been, everything comes down to the title track’s triumphant black sunburst that ties together every hint of melody, every crackling chord firestorm into a satisfying, mind-elevating whole. —DANIEL LAKE

S

ludge is often considered the province of Louisianans, but a buncha fucked-up North Carolina riff addicts called Buzzov*en proved they could shoot up and shoot out with the Big Easy’s best on Sore. The phrase “welcome to violence” loops at the beginning of the sprawling title track—you Sore should be glad that Buzzov*en Ro a d ru n n e r (1 9 9 4 ) were cool enough to warn you about what’s to come. This diabolical stew of messy pick scrapes, sandpaper-smooth My War riffs, antisocial and antiauthoritarian samples, and Kirk Lloyd’s regrets makes Sore one of the most vicious sludge albums ever released.

There’s not as much blues-and-boogie as some of their Southern contemporaries, which just leaves more room for abrasive notes and self-loathing. “Unwilling to Explain,” “Done” and “Grit” did prove, however, that none of the hardcore influence was lost. If one song on Sore could encapsulate the record, it’s “I Don’t Like You.” The bluntness of the title, the distorted bass, the hateful riffs—did Roadrunner know what they were getting themselves into? Probably not. Along with Nailbomb’s Point Blank, 1994 was a weird and brutal year for that label. —ANDY O’CONNOR

47

buzzov*en

24

45

black sabbath Sabotage

NEMS ( 19 75 )

Warning! Redundant and painfully obvious statement ahead: Tony Iommi and co. forged the crucible responsible for damn near all of what has come to pass as doom and stoner rock. Duh! We know you know, but one nuanced point to be made is how Iommi’s riff armory begat entire metal subgenres based solely on certain Sab songs/passages. Case in point: Where else in the mid-1970s were you hearing chugged picking patterns such as this heralded LP’s heaviest number, “Symptom of the Universe”?

Hetfield owes much to those glorious proto-thrash downstrokes!

By album number six, Sabbath were still hungry, but beaten down with constant legal woes. The result was an eclectic, well-mapped album containing some of their most ambitious songwriting.

Take “Supertzar,” which blends a fullon “Carmina Burana”-like vocal choir, classical orchestrated percussion and menacing end-is-nigh guitar themes.

This track, as well as the morose, druggy/droney “Megalomania,” definitely get echoed in epic ’90s acts like Candlemass and Anathema (okay, maybe not the cowbell-driven boogie bits). Then there’s the album’s entrancing opener, the timeless loner anthem, “Hole in the Sky”—heavy as hell, radio-ready and rife with enough psychonautical poetics to keep teen hessians navelgazing well into their first midlife crisis.

—SHAWN BOSLER

44

tiamat Wildhoney

43

C e n tu ry Me d i a (1 9 9 4 )

To this day, I don’t think people understand Johan Edlund. Previously known as Lucifer Hellslaughter while fronting black metal legends Treblinka, Edlund’s metal mind has always been vastly oppoDraconian Times site from the norm. From debut SumeMusic f or N ations (19 9 5) rian Cry through Clouds, the Swede obliterated boundaries, intrepidly braving OK, so maybe the only traditional cold shoulders from scene Neanderthals “doom metal” riff found on Draconian and the uncertain alike. I mean, listen Times appears in the morose album closer “Jaded.” In retrospect, fucking to “Mountain of Doom” (from 1991!) triumphant is a better way to describe and tell me Tiamat weren’t on the outer edges of the Jupiter while most bands the prevailing classic—not to menwere still trying to control fire. tion classy—heavy metal sound of Fast forward to Wildhoney in 1994. the Brits’ fifth and most successful LP. The first thing you noticed (back then And Paradise Lost certainly had reaanyway) was the orange Necrolord cover, son to celebrate back in the summer of replete with sunflowers and butterflies.

1995. After taking staggering sonic leaps The hell? When “Whatever That Hurts” with each of their first four albums, PL breaks, it’s all over for me. The Floydian refined Icon’s (1993) gothic metal temrhythm into the power chorus—talkplate and crafted their most accessible ing about honey tea, psilocybe larvae record. Of course, metal populism in the and silver spoons—is unadulterated eyes and ears of Paradise Lost meant Sismagic. Followed by “The ter of Mercy covers (“Walk Ar”? Jesus! The only other Away”); arena-rock-sized vaguely “metal” song was anthems (“The Last Time” MY TOP 5 “Visionaire”—its slow and “Yearn for Change”); GREGOR churn and lullaby guitar festival-ready, hardcore mosh pit ragers (“Once gives chills 20 years on.

Solemn”) and a brooding Edlund was smart to hire Paradise Lost epic opener (“Enchantguitarist Magnus Sahlgren Candlemass, ment”), which frontman and drummer Lars Sköld Epicus for Wildhoney. They’re Nick Holmes later revealed Doomicus master musicians—eviwas actually an ode to jerkMetallicus ing off. dent in the wondrous “Do Black Sabbath, You Dream of Me?” and “A So, yeah, maybe DraMaster of conian Times isn’t a fullPocket Sized Sun.” Both Reality fledged doom metal reridiculously great! If WildTrouble, cord, but I’m not gonna honey isn’t exclusively doom, Psalm 9 well, that doesn’t matter. apologize for its inclusion Tiamat’s pinnacle achievein this list. I don’t really Stillborn, Necrospirituals know what sorry means. ment is a top-lister regardless of genre. —CHRIS DICK —ALBERT MUDRIAN Type O Negative, October Rust

paradise lost

C

ome one, come all, and witness the glorious birth of stoner doom. Did you notice a viscous cloud of green smoke seeping out of your speakers the first time you heard that sleazy opening riff in “Dragonaut”? It’s cool, you weren’t going crazy—this record might Sleep’s Holy Mountain as well have been pressed out of Ear ache ( 19 9 2 ) pure THC. It’s insane to think that Holy Mountain, in all its stoner-y, fuzzy glory, was released into a mainstream metal scene that had Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power and White Zombie’s La Sexorcisto as its main reference points. This record is the antithesis of industrialized production and Hit Parader marketing. It’s the baked cousin who won’t stop talking to you about Sir Lord Baltimore, and it spawned an entire generation of Sabbath-worshipping weed heads who are still proselytizing through their Marshall stacks today.

Every song on Holy Mountain is an absolute banger. “The Druid,” “Aquarian,” “From Beyond,” the title track—no matter where you turn, you’re assaulted by Matt Pike’s enormous riffs, Al Cisneros’ psychedelic bass, Chris Hakius’ monolithic drumming and Billy Anderson’s filthy production. It all came together on this bad boy—two decades later and I still have cotton mouth. —MATT SOLIS

42

sleep

MACKINTOSH

25

41

40

candlemass

blue cheer

A c ti ve (1 9 8 8 )

Merc ury (1968)

Ancient Dreams

38

Vincebus Eruptum

Though it came out only a year and two This is not a doom album, or even a heavy metal album per se—Blue weeks after Nightfall, and even though Cheer’s debut instead sows the seeds both records have the exact same lineup, Ancient Dreams is a very different album for the bands that actually laid a foundafrom its predecessor. You can hear it imtion for heavy metal: Led Zeppelin and mediately in the guitar parts: Nightfall Black Sabbath (and its earlier incarnahas those twisted Black Sabbath riffs tion, Earth). As was the custom of the that rise and soar overhead like coal time, Vincebus Eruptum is split down the zeppelins—and AD middle between ragged reinhas those, too. But, unlike terpretations of blues stanMY TOP 5 Nightfall, AD comes with dards (B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby” and Mose Alan arsenal of 45-played-at-33 LEIF rpm thrash riffs, presaging lison’s “Parchman Farm”) bands to come like Exand a handful of originals horder and Pantera. that bassist/vocalist Dickie Candlemass But you can just look Peterson purportedly wrote Black Sabbath, at the two albums’ covers in 10 minutes or less.

Black Sabbath to get a sense of what reOf course, one of those Black Sabbath, ally sets them apart. Both covers—an inspired Paranoid are taken from Thomas take on Eddie Cochran’s Cole’s The Voyage of Life “Summertime Blues” with Black Sabbath, Master of series. Nightfall’s is Old a doomy opening riff— Reality Age, the final piece of the became the band’s signaseries. See all that nothture, but Peterson’s longer, Black Sabbath, ingness, how the angel is more contemplative origiVol. 4 pointing the man toward nals (including the drug Black Sabbath, it? Where AD’s cover is anthem “Doctor Please”) Sabbath Bloody the Youth stage; here the unquestionably melted the Sabbath angel points toward a hazy, minds of a generation of tumorous-domed castle in Bobby Lieblings and Winthe distance, the foreground abloom os. Vincebus Eruptum also suggests that, with virulent flora. This regression aside from Cream, there was no better through time makes sense when listenpower trio in this era—“Second Time ing to Ancient Dreams, hearing that it’s Around” combines a masterful guitar much more energetic (less lethargic?) tone, Paul Whaley’s expectant mid-song than Nightfall. Candlemass were lookdrum solo, bent notes galore and a wry twinkle of reefer madness. Roots, man. ing forward to their majestic future.

electric wizard

Come My Fanatics....

39 down NOLA

EDLING

—DUTCH PEARCE

Elekt r a ( 19 9 5)

The story of this album’s origins—a bunch of demos recorded and circulated by members of Eyehategod, C.O.C. and Pantera—is so legendary that it almost overshadows the music itself. But because NOLA was done so under the radar, really and truly just demo recordings, the major label that released it (Elektra) didn’t have the option to “sweeten” it up. Thus, all the heaviest elements of the associated members’ bands are left in raw form.

NOLA has groove, dueling droptuned guitars, mega-sludgy riffs, Phil Anselmo’s unholy angry howl—and fucking bong hits. Cannabis is, of course, an important component of the doom/ stoner genre, and this album sounds like Anselmo, Pepper Keenan, Jimmy Bower and Kirk Windstein bro-ing down and getting Southern-fried freaky to Trouble’s Psalm 9 and Witchfinder General’s Death Penalty while immaculately stoned. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

—NICK GREEN

26

Ri se Ab o ve ( 1997 )

Heavy—we know it when we hear it, right? But then there’s heavy—like, the crush-your-noggin-between-twobuzzed-and-fuzzy-riffs-and-watch-theblood-flow-thick-as-stale-molasses kind of heavy. Yeah, that’s Electric Wizard, and always has been.

But even after their promising 1995 debut, doom fiends didn’t quite know what they had with Electric Wizard until Come My Fanatics.... dropped its weight on unprepared ears. Molding the album from distortion that billows like black smoke, mastermind Jus Oborn and his fellow necromancers built a grindhouse playground rampant with occult orgies and magic spells cast under the influence. Hell, the hashish-flavored hooks made being criminally heavy cool again.

It drones and pounds with improvisational glee, scraping all polish from the recording and smoking it from a bong crafted from a mad monk’s skull.

From the psychedelic swagger of “Doom-Mantia” to the sleazy-ridin’ rollick of “Demon Lung,” Come My Fanatics.... announced the arrival of a visionary talent that would go on to redefine doom heading into the 21st century. And even more importantly, redefine heavy. —SEAN FRASIER

35

37

witchfinder general Death Penalty

He avy Me ta l (1 9 8 2 )

In the early ’80s, scouring your record store’s “metal” section, you may remember the campy/sexy cover for Death Penalty. Bare breasts notwithstanding, you probably wondered how the medieval debauchery on the outside translated to the record inside. Witchfinder are unique to all the other greats on this list, in that their devilry was 100 percent informed by NWOBHM. Sure, like everyone in this issue, they did a well-studied homage to mid-’70s Iommi riffery; but with all of the proto-metal British-blues boogie parts, and all of the kids-on-the-streets-looking-to-get-highand-score-with-chicks lyrics (actual example: “gimme, gimme, gimme beer”), one sometimes forgets about the cloak covering the denim sleeveless jacket underneath.

Speaking of NWOBHM, that singer, Zeeb Parkes, nailed that sassy-yet-sensitive rocker vibe heard in so many bands of that ilk. Kudos for the high-pitched squawks he sometimes tacks onto the end of his phrases—very reminiscent of Raven’s John Gallagher. With most songs strutting mid-to-up-tempo, and riffs sounding like a mash-up between the best (and most rock ‘n’ roll) moments from Sab’s first four and Priest’s first three LPs, Witchfinder leave a quirky and fun goat hoof stamp on the canon of doom. —SHAWN BOSLER

evoken Quietus

Avan t gar d e ( 2 001)

There are other worlds of doom than these. I guess. For the sake of collegiality, we’ll allow other branches of the style to be accepted into the doom family, but let’s get one thing straight: Evoken play the (Alex) Webster’s Dictionary definihe first three tracks tion of doom. Their songs’ utterly airof this album are the less density makes the word “apotheoquintessential encapsulasis” ashamed of its own inadequacy. tion of this band: 1) “Bad The gravity of their music frowns so Ground,” 38 seconds of obnoxintensely that jaw muscles peel loose ious buzzing meant to trick you, from faces and burrow toward the center of the earth. The New Jersey band’s mid-’90s compact disc purchaser, second proper album robes intangibles into thinking your stereo is blown like grief and anguish in resistant flesh, out; 2) “Untitled,” in which all blood and bone. Here. Be. Doom. four members abruptly chime in To the Evokolyte (that’s Evoken Acoto explain the joke before formally lyte, you unwashed mouth-breather), introducing the album; 3) “Love opener “In Pestilence, Burning” is immediately recognizable by the tinny, farYou to Death,” a dead-fuckingoff crackle of a Victrola sounding out its serious, thundercloud-heavy, plaintive piano melody. From there, the R oa drunner (1996) hypnotically sensuous, gorgeously mountains, the sky and harmonized epic. Puerthe whole fucking asteroid ile horsing around meets majestic gothic doom sprinkled belt come crashing down, MY TOP 5 with the late, great Peter Steele’s unnecessarily awesome disguised as over-amped JOHN instrumentation and penchant for rolling Rs. What is not to love?

John Paradiso’s quarryType O records are not heralded for their consistency, scraping bellow. Nuclear precisely because of those whiplash tonal shifts (even the Evoken detonation chords are dB Hall of Famer you’re going to read about in a few pages), underscored by restlessly Winter, but that odd dynamic suffused the Brooklyn quartet with Into Darkness scrawled guitar noise and an unmistakable and inimitable personality—something wrapped in moor-crawldiSEMBOWLMENT, ing keyboard laments. greatly lacking in a genre where so many are content to Transcendence into Whether you choose to the Peripheral play Sabbath dress-up and call it a career. October Rust also embrace the emptiness Dead Can Dance, includes hilarious/ignorant/startlingly observant rumior caress the void, we The Serpent’s Egg nations on lipstick lesbians, menstrual cycles and morbid should all agree on the Paradise Lost, Christmas dinners, all set to luscious drop B. Don’t worry, unquestionable quality of Gothic Quietus. —DANIEL LAKE guys—it wasn’t too disappointing. —ANDREW BONAZELLI Sadness, Ames De Marbe

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type o negative October Rust

PARADISO

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 PHOTO BY JOSEPH CULTICE

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dream death

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sir lord baltimore Kingdom Come Me rc u ry (1 9 7 0 )

The U.K. often overshadows America in the history of heavy metal (see: Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin).

Well, bollocks to that. Three longhairs from Brooklyn played a critical role in shaping the genre and corrupting young souls. The fellas of Sir Lord Baltimore got together in high school, and the result left an indelible impression: Creem’s review of Kingdom Come contains one of the earliest documented uses of the phrase “heavy metal.”

SLB’s formula was minimal, but the mania and roughness with which the trio played on Kingdom Come was enough to make horns rise and tongues wag. Songs were rooted in the blues, but blanketed with nefarious distortion, primal fuzz and sky-piercing solos—obvious precursors to desert rock and stoner doom. Singer/drummer John Garner’s dramatic growling, yelping and hollering came straight from the loins. He was sexually animated to the point of being maybe just a little nuts, which was, naturally, utterly irresistible to anyone with hormone-soaked gonads. To this day, “I Got a Woman,” “Hell Hound” and “Lady of Fire” incite tingles. Tell the Brits we got this—Brooklyn’s in the house. —JEANNE FURY

Journey Into Mystery N ew R ena issa nc e (198 7)

While Journey Into Mystery may have clocked in at 33rd place in our highly scientific and authoritative list of the Greatest Doom Albums of All Time, this particular hack would like to go on record saying that “Back From the Dead,” the leadoff track to the Pittsburgh band’s debut, is arguably the greatest doom song of all time, with the second and third tunes (“The Elder Race” and “Bitterness and Hatred”) not slacking far behind—arguably speaking, of course.

Crouched on the starting line alongside Celtic Frost’s guitar tone, and making use of their working knowledge of how to effectively shift power chords around at MY TOP 5 varying clips to infectious impact, Dream Death may JOHN have nipped at the heels of thrash metal in terms of Solitude tempo, but their riffing was Aeturnus pure doom with a pernicious canter. Or maybe that Candlemass, should be “swaying saunter,” Epicus Doomicus as like any good residents of Metallicus Steel City, the members

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solitude aeturnus Beyond the

C

PEREZ

of Dream Death (three of whom went on to form Penance in 1989) absorbed the skulking way of the zombie with regard to the creepy atmosphere they generated, cover art and the minihorror-inspired novellas created by vocalist/guitarist Brian Lawrence’s lyrics.

Pentagram, Day of Reckoning Trouble, Psalm 9 Saint Vitus, Born too Late Black Hole, Land of Mystery

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

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Crimson Horizon Ro ad r u n n er ( 19 9 2)

ompare and contrast Into the Depths of Sorrow (1991) and this record long enough and you’ll soon realize that while, yes, early ’90s Solitude Aeturnus owe a serious debt to Candlemass—in retrospect, it’s no surprise that vocalist Robert Lowe eventually wound up fronting the Swedish doom legends from 2007 to 2012—the more apt analogy might actually be to the 1948 Ford Super Deluxe Mr. Miyagi gifted Daniel-san in The Karate Kid. Which is to say, anyone possessing a modicum of good taste understood the implicit brilliance locked within the grooves of the über-heavy-doom-meets-nasty-thrash-meets-powerhouseoperatic-vocalizing full-length debut—recorded for a mere $3,000 in seven short days—but somewhere between Depths and its stellar follow-up, Solitude Aeturnus developed some serious “wax-on/wax-off ” skills. In a foundational sense, the albums are not all that different. When it came to presentation, though, the refined Beyond brought a deft nuance, unalloyed sheen and regal swagger so potent that every living motherfucker, whether they preferred to or not, had to recognize the pure transcendent elegance when it (metaphorically!) pulled up outside the arcade, speakers blaring—a serious crane kick to the face of doubters who contended that orchestral American doom would never drag metalheads into the melancholic abyss. —SHAWN MACOMBER

MY TOP 5 SAMI ALBERT “WITCHFINDER” HYNNINEN ex-Reverend Bizarre

Trouble, The Skull / Cathedral, Forest of Equilibrium Solitude Aeturnus, Through the Darkest Hour Iron Man, The Passage / Cold Mourning, Lower Than Low

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reverend bizarre

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In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend

witchcraft Witchcraft

R ise Abov e (2004 )

S ini s te r F i g u r e (2 0 0 2 )

It took several albums for Witchcraft These days, when enjoying Reverend to cast off the “Pentagram tribute act” Bizarre’s In the Rectory, I like to start yoke and evolve into a truly multifacwith the last track, “Cirith Ungol.” eted band. Still, the shadow of Bobby LiIt’s not that I think it’s a better opener ebling looms large here, particularly on than “Burn in Hell!”; I just can’t wait 53 the Pentagram cover “Please Don’t Forminutes to get to that first fuzzy note. get Me” and the live-from-the-basement And when it finally hits, it’s like mainquality of the title track (not to mention lining an earthquake. Goes straight to a second Pentagram cover included as my void and rattles me from the inside a bonus track on vinyl releases). The out. The skin on the back of my head arrangements across the whole of the bristles to attention; the hand of my album are simple and uncluttered, in the soul reaches up from the boiling pitch vein of the primitive framework of early to throw the horns. Then Magister Pentagram or Roky Erickson. Shorter Albert’s vocals come in, and I’m gone tracks like “Schyssta Lögner” and “The from this world entirely. I’m surfing Snake” bear a laser focus, and highlight the monolith through the inky chasm the band’s single greatest attribute: Magof the great beyond. nus Pelander’s vocals.

Magister Albert’s singing style is no Witchcraft prove adept doubt many people’s favorat expanding themes in the ite part about Reverend album’s six-minute closer Bizarre, and if you listen to MY TOP 5 “Her Sisters They Were the “symbol of our Doom” MAGNUS Weak,” which features a soline from “Cirith Ungol,” norous flute interlude and when he holds out “Doom” a closing keyboard vamp. so long it becomes a gutWitchcraft Woodwind instruments on tural effort, you’ll totally Bedemon, Child a doom album may have understand why. A lesser of Darkness seemed unfathomable, unband might have released Paternoster, til you consider Iommi’s this song as a standalone Paternoster turn on “Solitude” from EP, but Reverend Bizarre Master of Reality. A decade put it last, thus granting Sevenchurch, on, these Swedes are practheir listeners apotheoBleak Insight tically elder statesmen, but sis after being crushed by Cathedral, on 2004’s eponymous fullfive of the heaviest tracks Forest of length, they were extremely the genre’s ever known.

Equilibrium apt pupils. —NICK GREEN —DUTCH PEARCE Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate

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he pinnacle of Katatonia’s early era, and easily one of the most groundbreaking metal albums of the 1990s, Brave Murder Day finds the duo of Anders “Blakkheim” Nyström and Jonas Renkse learning to bridge the Brave Murder Day black/doom style Avan t gar d e (1996) of 1993’s Dance of MY TOP 5 December Souls with elements of the Cure’s gothic ANDERS post-punk and My Bloody Valentine’s hazy, hypnotic “BLAKKHEIM” shoegaze sound.

Unlike the previous album, Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt lends his growled lead vocals, but here Katatonia they’re more of an afterthought. Front and center Paradise Lost, Gothic is the music, which is often built around a steady, insistent, almost krautrock-esque 4/4 beat, around My Dying Bride, Turn Loose which chord patterns gracefully repeat and evolve, the Swans layers of guitars added for texture. The fact that the Anathema, The songs often downshift into slower tempos make Crestfallen EP Brave Murder Day’s ties to doom rather obvious, Candlemass, the lasting lesson from this album being that one Nightfall can explore similar themes of doom metal without Type O feeling obligated to stick to the rules. Katatonia bent Negative, the rules out of shape on this album, and influenced October Rust a generation. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

NYSTRÖM

PELANDER

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katatonia

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the obsessed

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Lunar Womb

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

The Lunar Womb cover features Francisco Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son,” a painting depicting… uh, Saturn devouring his son. And why would the god of time engage in such filicide? According to Greek mythology, the act was less about delighting the palate than thwarting a prophecy warning that one of his offspring would eventually usurp him.

Now, it is of course possible that guitarist/vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich selected this image based on gnarliness alone. Yet, after an eventful 1990 that included his exit from Saint Vitus as well as the long-delayed release of the then-recently-reactivated Obsessed’s solid-if-aged self-titled debut, recorded for (and then buried by) Metal Blade back in ’85… well, perhaps Lunar Womb was a Saturn-esque message to the young doom upstarts Wino’d helped midwife into existence: Still here, motherfuckers—and ready to get my devour on!

If so, this brilliant palace of razorsharp twist ‘n’ chug riffage assembled around a jewel-encrusted throne of sinister groove hardly represented an empty threat: Lunar Womb not only ridiculously overdelivered on every promise of its predecessor and stood toe-to-toe with Saint Vitus’ ghost, but also set down a marker that an entire subgenre strives to match 20 years later.

—SHAWN MACOMBER

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kyuss Kyuss (Welcome to Sky Valley)

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cirith ungol King of the Dead

Elekt r a ( 19 9 4)

En i gma ( 19 8 4 )

opefully I don’t have to convince anyone reading this magazine of Sky Valley’s merits, but it would be fair to ask what it’s doing on a list of doom albums. The record mostly bounces and swings instead of plods and slogs—it’s hard to form glacial riffs when there’s no fucking water in the desert— and while “doo” might be the first three letters of the genre, doom usually has little room for MY TOP 5 humor. Yet, while Josh Homme claims to have BRANT never listened to Black Sabbath, it’s hard not to think of the Birmingham quartet when spinning these 11 tracks, whether “Odyssey” and “N.O.”’s ex-Kyuss riffs, Scott Reeder’s darting bass lines on “Supa Black Sabbath, Scoopa and Mighty Scoop” and “Whitewater,” Black Sabbath or the sheer heaviness of the band’s musical masBlack Sabbath, terpiece, “Gardenia.”

Paranoid If despair’s your thing, you can still find it Black Sabbath, here. It just stems from the inescapable heat and Master of Reality sand—you know, the stuff that’s coarse and Black Sabbath, rough and irritating and gets everywhere—not Vol. 4 the unbearable burden that is life. Sky Valley may Black Sabbath, not have tons in common with the rest of this Sabbath Bloody list, but it’s more than enough to sit comfortably Sabbath amidst its ranks. —ZACH SMITH

BJORK

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Michael Moorcock’s Elric was always a weird outlier in a genre content to plow the verdant fields of English folklore; his stories of the tragic albino hero with the soul-stealing sword and life-sustaining drugs struck a discordant note in the early days of fantasy that hasn’t been struck since. The ominous cover painting for Moorcock’s Bane of the Black Sword also graces the front of Cirith Ungol’s classic King of the Dead, and it’s a perfect fit for a band that did the same for doom metal.

Primal conjurations of chaos magic like “Master of the Pit” and “Atom Smasher” hammer out classical melodies using the rawest, ugliest instrumental sounds they could find, with Tim Baker’s untrained shriek a thing of pure passion. The sheer malevolence feels like nothing that came before or after.

It’s undeniably heavy, and sometimes slow, but that’s not why this is doom.

This is doom because every buzzsaw riff and anvil hit heralds Ragnarok itself.

It’s doom in the same way that Elric is fantasy—what the hell else do you call it? —JEFF TREPPEL

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skepticism Stormcrowfleet Re d S tre a m (1 9 9 5 )

Two minutes into “Sign of a Storm,” you know you’re in for something unsettling. The four Finns of Skepticism detach from the introductory abominable snowman plod and let Eero Pöyry’s vintage church pipe organ truly announce its presence. Sadness prevails, and maintains dominion for

what seems like millennia.

Christians don’t often excel in the “appreciating irony” department, but come on—name a more inspired stratagem than defacing and perverting the enemy’s own weapons. Then again, to be fair, Skepticism—moniker and predilection for that aforementioned pipe organ notwithstanding—weren’t hell-bent on abetting the Christ-rape prevalent in underground extremity at the time so much as evoking the “nature, sorrow and evergreen forests” indigenous to their home country. Yup, this is 57 minutes of mood music; but what’s transcendent about Stormcrowfleet is that the bass-free, guttural savagery can transport you to heart-stopping rural expanses even if you’re spinning it in a 300-square-foot studio apartment. It’s a wall of sound that will never be toppled, requires no renovation, and reps funeral doom at its most nascent, primitive and powerful. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

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floor Floor

No Id ea ( 20 0 2)

Floor’s dichotomy is one of the band’s most loved characteristics. Guitarists Steve Brooks and Anthony Vialon invented a fucked-up tuning—the fabled “bomb string”—that made their tandem axe assault sound like buildings falling on top of bones. However, just as quickly as they conjure up

images of destruction by amplitude wave (despite not normally employing a bassist, drummer Henry Wilson wanted to push low-end limits, so he recorded bass tracks on Floor), they spin around and make like the happiest sounding band on the planet.

Their self-titled debut, which didn’t actually see the light of day until a decade after their 1992 formation, housed slow-burning classics “Scimitar,” “Return to Zero” and “Assassin,” great songs that didn’t initially click with the greater public. But you had to think that an album that shot rainbows and gumdrops at legions of patch-jacketed stoner-doom hessians from the eye of a down-tuned super-tornado wouldn’t be silent for long. Buoyed by the popularity of Brooks’ Torche, Vialon’s Cavity, Wilson’s Dove, the Robotic Empire label’s tireless promotional efforts and the passage of time, Floor has risen phoenix-like to comfort and confuse with its brilliant and contradictory ingredients.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

MY TOP 5 CALVIN

ROBERTSHAW My Dying Bride Trouble, Trouble Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath Vol. 4 Celtic Frost, Into the Pandemonium Katatonia, Brave Murder Day Confessor, Condemned

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my dying bride Turn Loose the Swans Peacevi lle ( 19 93 )

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fter two decades of mythologizing My Dying Bride’s role as architects of doom/death, you’d be forgiven for assuming that second album Turn Loose the Swans would be a pure distillation of the style. So, what to do with that opening track—seven and a half-minutes of synth arpeggios and Aaron Stainthorpe proclaiming, “You lift me above myself / With the ghostly lake of your mind” in a wobbly baritone? You accept it as a ballsy move from a band confident enough to experiment, but still as metal as they make ’em in West Yorkshire.

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As affected (and downright odd) as Turn Loose the Swans is in parts, it’s first and foremost a fucking great doom record. My Dying Bride toned down the death metal, expanded the melodic scope and broadened the arrangements, compared to their debut. Some of the band’s best riffs can be heard in Turn Loose tracks “Your River” and “The Crown of Sympathy,” both framed by immaculate guitar harmonies and violin lines. What emerges is an amalgam of viciousness and majesty—like My Dying Bride could destroy your kingdom, but they chose to rule it instead. —ETAN ROSENBLOOM

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pentagram

First Daze Here (The Vintage Collection)

warning

R el a pse (2002)

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black sabbath Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Ve rti g o (1 9 7 3 )

There’s a reason why both Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler regard Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as the band’s ultimate achievement—and why Ozzy says he should have split after this one (even though he’s wrong): Sabbath’s fifth album is a career-defining convergence of everything that made them legends, only bigger, better and infinitely more sophisticated.

Not only does Sabbath Bloody Sabbath feature some of Butler’s most thoughtful lyrics and Iommi’s tastiest riffs; it arguably contains a boatload of songs that could’ve been hits on the scale of “Iron Man” or “Paranoid,” had it not been for their relative length. From hypnotic DNA drug trips “A National Acrobat” and “Spiral Architect” to antibooze anthem “Killing Yourself to Live” (Butler wrote the lyrics while hospitalized with kidney problems brought on by relentless drinking) and the infectious “Sabbra Cadabra”—ironically, Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman was paid in beer for his contributions to the latter—Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the Drab Four at their most thrilling and potent. And that’s to say nothing of the iconic title track, which boasts “the riff that saved Black Sabbath” in the wake of Iommi’s post-Vol. 4 writer’s block, and was the only song from the record actually released as a single. —J. BENNETT

Watching From a Distance

In the early ’70s, Bobby Liebling was The Mi skat o n i c F o u n d at i o n on a songwriting streak that no one has ( 20 0 6 ) topped in the ensuing decades. One significant problem: most of the gems he There are heavier records; records that wrote were never properly released, and are more progressive; ones that have crewere subsequently sought out by collecated a more indelible mark. But there is tors like they were Brian Wilson’s Smile perhaps no sadder album than Warning’s sessions. First Daze Here is the first leWatching From a Distance. gitimate collection of Liebling’s early Singer/guitarist Patrick Walker is gems, released by Relapse before the maintaining his streak of despondent doom legend appeared in a documendoom with current trio 40 Watt Sun, tary and got sober. but there’s little doubt that during the The songs on First writing process of WatchDaze are some of the fining, someone tore his est ever written—not heart in half. His peculiar MY TOP 5 just in the doom genre, but voice, like a Shakespearean VICTOR actor singing soliloquies, is in heavy metal. There’s the wistful “Walk in the Blue usually the stopping block Light,” the bluesy gallop for skeptics. But while Pentagram Walker’s vocals initially of “Forever My Queen” Black Sabbath, and the arena-ready riff of come off as overly theatVolume 4 “Livin’ in a Ram’s Head.” rical, it’s hard to imagine But the standout on the resomething that could Alice Cooper, Love It to Death cord—if not Liebling’s climb over these colossal musical career—is “Reriffs and still deliver lyrics Phantom, The so sincere and crestfallen. view Your Choices,” with Divine Comedy its talk of pitchforks and There are moments of Steppenwolf, 7 metaphor, descriptions poor choices. Listened to Johnny Cash, of the standard battles with the baggage of histoAmerican and fortresses, but often ry, it’s hard not to view the Recordings it’s Walker eschewing track as autobiographical; these tropes and bluntly Liebling has died and been reborn so many times, spending much of describing his overpowering sense loss his life avoiding the man coming around and need. the bend.

Each of these five songs trudges Liebling has talked before about forward with all the subtlety of a death how the only thing missing from his march, as Walker calls out to that person career revival is the Rock and Roll Hall he once knew, detailing the postmortem of Fame. Based on these timeless songs, of what they once had. “I am trying to he should at least get an honorary income home,” he says in barefaced desduction. Five fucking Fig Newtons. peration, “but I can’t keep myself from drifting.” —SHANE MEHLING —JUSTIN M. NORTON

GRIFFIN

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earth

Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version Su b Po p ( 19 9 3 )

True pioneers split time into “before” and “after.” Before Earth’s debut fulllength, Earth 2, there was no such thing as drone-doom, or—to quote Sub Pop’s Bruce Pavitt—“ambient metal.”

But this Seattle-founded guitar-and-bass duo changed all that. Now we’re living in the post-Earth 2 era, a time when no one bats an eye at an all-instrumental metal record, or even one that eschews drums. And how about that cover? No skulls. No graveyards. No upside-down crosses. Just a Rothko-esque image of a Mongolian landscape.

The album itself, a 75-minute recording released at the height of grunge, is a minimalist milestone that strips doom down to a series of groaning riffs ( “Seven Angels”) and time-stretching drones (“Like Gold and Faceted”). No vocals.

No solos. No bullshit. Unsurprisingly, it took a good five to 10 years for this 1993 effort to spark the imagination of the underground. In other words, the “after” didn’t happen right away. But once it arrived, the album title alone became synonymous with a whole new style of doom. —BRENT BURTON

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sleep

Jerusalem Ri se Ab o ve/ The Mu si c C art e l ( 19 9 9 )

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hortly after the instant classic Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, Leif Edling and Candlemass hit paydirt in a huge way with the hiring of one Bror Jan Alfredo “Messiah” Marcolin as the band’s new lead singer. Although the debut album will always remain a landmark, setting the template for post-Sabbath European doom thereafter, the band’s gloomy, funereal sound crystallizes in stunning fashion on Nightfall. Edling’s songwriting continues to improve, drawing inspiration from Sabbath’s more mournful material, yielding such fan favorites as “Bewitched,” “Samarithan” and “The Well of Souls”.

As strong as Edling’s work on Nightfall is, though, Marcolin is the big reason why it succeeds so greatly. This music should be belted out with operatic bombast, and previous singer Johan Längqvist was the one significant weak spot on Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. Marcolin, on the other hand, makes as bombastic an entrance imaginable, delivering the morbid lyrics in a powerful tenor voice that had not quite been attempted in doom before. As a result, songs like “Dark Are the Veils of Death” and the timeless “At the Gallows End” sound imposing, commanding and, most importantly, theatrical. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

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candlemass Nightfall Act i ve ( 19 87)

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Jerusalem may not be the “definitive” version of Sleep’s third LP—that would be Dopesmoker—but it was how many of us heard what guitarist Matt Pike once said “might be the fuckin’ weirdest song ever” for the first time (if you’re not aware of the back story, pick up our March 2006 issue immediately, and not just for the well-written cover story).

Just how good is the 52-minute opus?

For an album all about weed—from its lyrics to its packaging, not to mention the copious amounts consumed during its creation—the drug is by no means required for Pike’s monumental riffs, Chris Hakius’ hypnotic drum work and Al Cisneros’ rollicking bass lines to send you into a doom-laden reverie. Sure, lighting up probably helps, but there’s enough variety to always keep things interesting: the much-needed acoustic break in “track four,” the healthy sprinklings of Pike’s wailing solos and Cisneros’ chants and, most importantly, the opening riff that slowly uncoils over the course of track one and is continually unfurled in one form or another the rest of the way. There has never been a record quite like it, and probably never will be again. —ZACH SMITH

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disembowelment

black sabbath

Transcendence Into the Peripheral

Black Sabbath Vol. 4

R el a pse (1993)

While plenty of bands were playing Ve r ti g o (1 9 7 2 ) doom/death hybrids before Australia’s Vol. 4 contains the supercharged ripper, diSEMBOWELMENT released their “Supernaut.” Even if the rest of the alsingle full-length, Transcendence Into bum were shite—which it ain’t— the Peripheral extended the subgenre’s extremities and aimed them artwards. that tune’s rubber band riffs deserve Downtuned, knuckle-dragging chords their own prayer and devotion chamber (they’re too slow to be considered riffs) in the sacred halls of doom. The record’s and near-grindcore tempos alternate also iconic because it contains several and occasionally rub up against one Sabbath trademarks: heaviness, groove, another; vocalist Renato Gallina issues vocal hooks, trippy musical experimendepressed esoterica (e.g., “Translucent tation (hello, washboard and drum-fill plains envisioned beyond the horizon / I outro!) and hippy-dippy psychonautical hear the flapping of wings / The bestokthemes. ing tranquility of iridescent spectrum”) Speaking of the latter, it should be in a variety of gurgles and chants; cleannoted that Sabbath were, in fact, antone guitars waft through the muck like gry hippies: anti-nuke/anti-organized braying foghorns. It all emanates from religion truth-seekers who dabbled in a pitch-black well of weirdness. Clouded the occult and, by album number four, by thick atmosphere and reverb, Tranhad wandered from the greenery into scendence sounds like it was recorded at mounds of white powder. They say coke a pagan death ritual from deep within builds confidence (cough cough…); perthe earth. haps it was the swagger needed to boldly It took 17 years after the demise of write their first ballad, “Changes,” and diSEMBOWELMENT for these songs led to the suffering required to craft the to be aired live for the first time, by the classic “Snowblind.” Those brilliant deinterim project d.USK, scending notes throughled by original members out the chorus are the template for funeral Matthew Skarajew and MY TOP 5 Paul Mazziotta. The doom trudging (“the sun PAUL pair has since climbed no longer sets me free”). back into d-BOWEL’s Even with the aforemeneviscerated abdominal tioned classics—and excavity with their new possibly the heaviest diSEMBOWELMENT/ song of their career, project, Inverloch. But Inverloch “Cornucopia”—SabTranscendence remains Cathedral, bath freaks constantly the Aussies’ singular Forest of Equilibrium debate the merits of statement, a queasy Paradise Lost, Vol. 4. It may be eclecmasterwork of dank Lost Paradise theatrics and knotted tic, and a bit eccentric, Autopsy, guts that totally lives but the quality within is Mental Funeral up to its WTF? title. unquestionable.

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Shape of Despair, Angels of Distress Trouble, Psalm 9

Cen t u r y Med i a ( 19 9 3 )

he members of Eyehategod haven’t led pretty lives, so it would be foolish to expect them to make pretty music. Even so, Take as Needed for Pain makes for one hell of a harrowing listen. The ugliest parts of Black Sabbath mixed with the ugliest parts of Black Flag, this may be one of the most unpleasant Narcotics Anonymous meetings ever set to tape.

Ozzy and friends had drug problems, and Hank and Greg had anger issues, but these NOLA boys took both those things to an entirely new level of debauchery, rage and self-loathing. Hell, “singer” Mike Williams was homeless at the time of its recording. They plumbed fresh depths of misery, and they did it with an almost reckless disregard for their instruments and the well-being of themselves and those around them.

Take as Needed feels like the whole thing could collapse into anarchy and violence at any time. Like they overdosed on life, and now they’re vomiting out the poison. Still, that self destruction allowed the entire genre of sludge metal to rise, phoenix-like, from the pile of ashes and dirty needles. Could be worse. —JEFF TREPPEL

MAZZIOTTA

—SHAWN BOSLER

eyehategod Take as Needed for Pain

—ETAN ROSENBLOOM

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winter

black sabbath

Into Darkness

12

Fu tu r e S ho c k (1 9 9 0 )

Winter reunited in 2010 to play Roadburn. They are registered as “active” on Metal-Archives.com. Guitarist Stephen Flam is definitely active and playing in Serpentine Path with Ryan Lipynsky, Tim Bagshaw, et al, and as recently as a couple of years ago stated that Winter had been working on a couple of songs.

So, there is some hope that Winter might record again. But those familiar with Into Darkness’ post-apocalyptic deathcrawl will tell you that optimism is a concept alien to Winter.

Into Darkness is anti-hope, a frigid, cold and bleak record from a band who were never appreciated in their time, whose sound never quite satisfied the metal scene’s hunger for speed and musical physicality. Winter came out of New York in 1988. Playing shows in squats on the Lower East Side, they found more traction in the crust and underground hardcore circles than they did in the metal scene. You can hear the Amebix and Discharge influence, but there is also a Celtic Frost flavor to Into Darkness. The late Greg Marchak’s austere production adds to its sense of otherness, as the riffs and growls of Winter’s slo-mo death-doom sound as though they’re being broadcast from beneath the permafrost.—JONATHAN HORSLEY

typeBloody o negative Kisses

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esides posing with his (huge) cock out in Playgirl magazine and, okay, plastering a photo of his own hairy sphincter on the cover of The Origin of the Feces, Bloody Kisses is possibly the greatest joke that Type O frontman Peter Steele ever played on anyone. The band reaped veritable legions of teenage goth queens and guy-liner enthusiasts from MTV’s regular airing of the Halloween-drenched video for the album’s lead single, “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All),” which introduced the 6’8” former NYC garbage man to a devoted suburban fan base who had never heard of Carnivore.

We can only imagine what the teenyboppers thought after getting sucked in by deadpan lyrics like “Her perfume smells like burning leaves,” and then convincing mom to buy them an album that kicked off with the dildo cacophony of “Machine Screw” before veering into the jungle-rape nonsense of “Fay Wray Come Out and Play,” the hilarious punk screed “Kill All the White People” and a cover of Seals & Crofts’ soft-rock ode to the least-goth of seasons, “Summer Breeze.” In the end, the joke wasn’t really a joke at all: Bloody Kisses is the pinnacle of doom-pop bliss, a brilliant album that takes itself way less seriously than it probably should. —J. BENNETT

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Paranoid

Ver t i go ( 19 7 0)

Recorded a mere four months after the release of Black Sabbath in the U.K., Paranoid represents the band’s U.S. breakthrough. Paranoid showcases Sabbath at the height of their capabilities, and demonstrates what the quartet could do with a minimum of distractions (Master of Reality represents the shift to mo’ money, mo’ drugs, mo’ problems). The title track was thrown together as a lark in the studio, and “Rat Salad” was literally composed as between-song glue for live performances. It is most notable for its Side A, which features the highly iconic stoner favorites “War Pigs” (originally “Walpurgis”), “Paranoid,” “Planet Caravan” and “Iron Man” (featuring Tony Iommi’s Frankenstein-esque combination of riffs and some of Geezer Butler’s most perfect lyrics).

Side B starts out fairly bulletproof, as well, with “Electric Funeral” and the molten “Hand of Doom” both offering hints at Sabbath’s future dimensions.

To be fair, “Rat Salad” exists only as a demonstration of drummer Bill Ward’s chops, and the band appears merely mortal on “Faeries Wear Boots” (and the song-within-the-song “Jack the Stripper”). But, holy shit, Side A of Paranoid is the greatest single side of any album ever. —NICK GREEN

Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn. “We are secretly a punk rock band,” Weinrich writes. “Our attitude and defiant stand is what we learned [from punk] and lived.”

The metal scene wasn’t really interested in a bunch of throwbacks. But the combination of Weinrich’s commanding baritone and Chandler’s plodding, pensive riffs (not to mention the primitive, on-the-cheap recording) created something that has resonated with musicians and fans across decades. “I am blown away [by that],” Weinrich says, “but that reMY TOP 5 cord is timeless in my eyes, SCOTT “WINO” and Chandler is a genius in his way.”

The fact that doom as Saint Vitus a genre didn’t exist in ’86 Pentagram, actually underscores how Pentagram ahead of its time Born Too Late turned out to be. “I Black Sabbath, appreciate that people have Paranoid embraced it over the years, Candlemass, Turns out that what because when I wrote it I Epicus had no idea that it would seemed so backward-looking Doomicus become something ahead at the time was actually preMetallicus of its time,” Chandler exscient. By embracing their Witchfinder plains. “To us, it was just outsider status Wino, guiGeneral, Soviet tarist Dave Chandler, bassist the next record.”

Invasion As for why its appeal has Mark Adams and drummer Black Sabbath, Armando Acosta (R.I.P.) acbeen so lasting, Weinrich Master of tually helped push the doom has his theories. “It appeals Reality to people of all walks of life. movement along. “This music filled a void,” Weinrich It is protest music, outlaw tells us via email, “a special place where music, music for the times—slow, folks were tired of thrash, tired of glam or angry, bleak and primitive. Because it’s punk, and we filled that space.” slower and simpler, it also clicks with someone who is just trying to let the “At the time of its release, there [were] probably no other album[s] out there music take them for a ride. Just like the like that,” Chandler agrees, “especially person who uses drugs or substances to in the punk scene that we were in.” Born leave or change reality, it takes the edge Too Late, it’s worth noting, was released off, or comments on life, which can be a challenge.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN on SST, the very same label owned by

WEINRICH

10 saint vitus

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n 1986, Saint Vitus were acutely aware of the fact that their music—hell, even their look—was an anachronism. The Los Angeles quartet called its third album—and first with ex-Obsessed vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich—Born Too Late, because, well, who the hell was playing slow, plodding Sabbath-esque metal in the mid’80s, other than maybe Trouble or Candlemass? Even Sabbath had moved on to a more “modern” sound.

36  PHOTO BY NAOMI PETERSEN

9 thergothon

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uneral doom isn’t for everyone. If you came to doom (or bought this mag) for the groove or the fuzz or the retro/stoner/occult/desert bong rip, it’s not too late to turn back—or flip to the next page. In the lantern-lit netherworlds of funeral doom, melancholy and depression are the raison d’être, and for those of us hard-wired for rapturous misery and unabashed woe, Thergothon is an institution.

Portents of Thergothon’s dismal birth are scattered across the two and a half decades of doom metal that preceded the band’s one and only LP, Stream From the Heavens. Imagine the perfect distillation of every sullen doom metal riff ever written—from those creepy opening

notes on Black Sabbath’s 1970 eponymous debut to the spine-tingling guitar misery that opens Trouble’s Psalm 9 or Candlemass’s downer “Solitude”—add an unhealthy appetite for Lovecraftian horror and a heavy dose of the gray and ancient Finnish death metal sound, and

you’re in the vicinity of Stream’s 40 harrowing minutes.

Thergothon were no doubt taking cues from the handful of bands loosely huddled together in the early ’90s under the death/doom flag that had already made huge strides in raising “depressive atmospheres” to an elevated role.

Despite death/doom’s bleak triumphs, however, the genre’s saturation of darkness and misery just wasn’t enough for three metalheads from rural Finland who saw the potential for further inroads into the gloom. Acting on those impulses, Thergothon would concoct a doom touchstone and inadvertently pioneer a genre—providing sonic blueprints for the then-unnamed funeral doom.

Hailed by the underground press as “the most depressive album ever” upon release in 1994 (the album was actually recorded in 1992, but was held up due to record label delays), Stream From the Heavens’ tempos limped noticeably slower than any of Thergothon’s death/doom contemporaries, even slower than the

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crawling pace of the band’s 1991 demo Fhtagn-nagh Yog-Sothoth. Vocalist/lyricist Niko Sirkiä explains, “The album turned out slower than the demo, as we wanted to have a really abysmal sound and atmosphere, as if the songs would freeze in place.”

Guitarist/drummer Jori Sjöroos remembers, “On some songs, we thought, ‘Let’s just do this as slow as we can and see how this works.’ We loved how it sounded, and soon everything was written around that tempo.”

But Stream From the Heavens was much more than just ultra-slow metal.

Masterfully nuanced and contemplative, the album captures a teenage malaise drunk on horror fiction, and the emotional desolation that comes along with those nine-month Finnish winters.

Stream’s painfully slow and agonizing riffs rise and crash in a flanger-soaked euphoria, sweeping the listener—and doom metal in general—off onto one of the blackest voyages ever embarked upon. —SCOTT KOERBER

8 electric wizard Dopethrone

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us Oborn has strong opinions! About former record labels; about ex-members of Electric Wizard; and definitely about magazines that let him shit-talk these things, but also follow up with the targets of his ire. (Spoiler: all negative.) And yet his summary of E-Wiz’s 2000 stoner doom magnum opus and dB Hall of Famer Dopethrone is succinct, even understated: “It is excessive.”

Oborn told us about the conception and recording of Dopethrone and the British dirtbag soap opera of drugs, perpetual unemployment and low-level crime that hung over the members between 1997’s Come My Fanatics.... LP and the day they

rolled into Chuckalumba Studios, in their hometown of Dorset, with a few ounces of weed and a producer who had scored what Oborn recalls as “the shittiest coke I’ve ever had. We were all having nosebleeds from it.” But before that, we need

to talk about the sound of Dopethrone.

It’s like the riffs, the rhythm section, the vocals—basically everything—are ALL low in the mix, subsumed by a subbass miasma of fuzz. And somehow it’s still really loud. There’s malevolence and numb despair in the lyrics, an overarching evil that puts it more in line with death or black metal than Sabbath’s hippie/Christian sentiment, backed up by expertly curated samples from trash movies and Satanic-panic propaganda.

(Oborn collected the latter throughout the ’80s. “All the stuff they’d show, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m into!’”)

Oborn and drummer Mark Greening don’t agree on whether they were trying to compete with the rest of the doom scene when they made Dopethrone. Oborn: “There were other bands that I admired, but I knew we could do the heaviest shit, we could be the heaviest band.” Greening, over email: “We didn’t try to copy bands or to compete with anyone. It was what we did; that is what we were. We were not trying to beat anyone or to be anything.”

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They both cop to the title being a shot at Sleep, whose Dopesmoker (a.k.a. Jerusalem) is definitely somewhere else on this list. “Yeah. Kings of dope! Three wizards crowned in weed,” Oborn boasts. “It was an arrogant attitude, but we were fucking wasted. We were arrogant shits, you know?”

Dopethrone backs up all the stoned bravado, and also cracks our top 10 as an essential guide to burnout culture.

It’s a rough guide to British horror films (The Dunwich Horror, Mark of the Devil, Masque of the Red Death), and draws a line from Weird Tales authors to underground tape-traders. Oborn took inspiration from Conan author Robert E. Howard’s “anti-civilization rants,” and of course from weird fiction giant H.P. Lovecraft: “Some of his stories have the idea of the occult carrying over to music—certain frequencies or time signatures that could possibly open channels to other worlds or call things through from another world. Lovecraft had the idea that art and aesthetics could affect changes on the world.” —ANTHONY BARTKEWICZ

MY TOP 5 BOBBY

LIEBLING

7 pentagram Relentless

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entagram must be the only band in history to have recorded their debut LP by accident—and under a different name at that. When they cut the All Your Sins demo over two sessions at Gismo Studios, Virginia, in ’81 and ’82, Pentagram were known as Death Row, and this recording was considered a demo to shop around to labels. As it transpired, All Your Sins would become a rough-hewn doom metal touchstone. Eventually.

Once Death Row had changed their name to Pentagram, a reworked and resequenced All Your Sins was reissued on vinyl as Pentagram’s debut proper in ’85. Peaceville then restored the original

All Your Sins tracklisting and recordings, reissuing it in 1993 as Relentless. A Decibel HOF inductee, Relentless defines doom metal—not that there was such a thing when it was written.

“Back in those days, right away, and it was just Pentagram one of those relationships the late ’70s and early ’80s, where you meet someone when I wrote a lot of that Black Sabbath, Master of and it’s very casual, very stuff, I don’t think there Reality loose and comfortable,” was a genre,” says guitarist recalls Griffin. “His stage Victor Griffin. “There was Pentagram, presence—he just has nothing called doom metal Sub-basement this magic thing that you back then. It was hard rock Iggy Pop, or heavy metal, acid rock.” just have to be born with it; Head On Griffin was 17, living in his it’s not something you could Pentagram, parents’ basement, rewirlearn... like Alice Cooper, Pentagram ing speaker cabs and experiArthur Brown.”

(Relentless) menting with drop tunings, Death Row toured Paradise Lost, D.C. and its surrounding when he chanced upon drop Gothic areas, filling clubs on the B tuning, wrote the song “Death Row” and began strength of a live show that distilling Sabbathian riffs foreshadowed black metal to their very quintessence, viz. doom. in the band’s use of corpsepaint. But the Griffin formed Death Row in Tennesbig break never materialized. “We just couldn’t get any further,” says Griffin. see with high school buddy and bassist “After we changed the name to PentaLee Abney. When they arrived in Washington D.C. to hook up with drummer gram, it was the same thing. Now we are Joe Hasselvander, Griffin had already playing shows like we wanted to do all written the likes of “Relentless,” “All Your these years; we are getting to do it now.

Sins,” “Dying World” and “Sinister,” but Bobby and I talked about this—maybe once Hasselvander introduced Griffin to it is meant to be like this. We were pretty Bobby Liebling, Death Row really took crazy back then... throughout the ’80s, shape. Liebling was a lifestyle extremist, really. Perhaps if we had gotten what we a doper—but he was 100 percent chawanted, we might not even be here today.” risma. “Bobby and I hit it off really well, —JONATHAN HORSLEY

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MY TOP 5 NICK

HOLMES

Paradise Lost Candlemass, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

6 paradise lost Gothic

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othic almost never happened. Long story short, the European distributors for Peaceville nearly laughed labelhead Paul “Hammy” Halmshaw and Paradise Lost guitarist/songwriter Gregor Mackintosh out of the office when presented with the sixth album on our Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time list. The distributors had to be “convinced,” recalls Mackintosh.

It’s important to remember that Gothic was unlike anything in the early ’90s. There was no antecedent. “Gothic doom,” “doom/death” or “atmospheric doom” simply didn’t exist under doom’s mighty tree back then. The unexpected fusion of Nick Holmes’ gruff howl, Mackintosh’s ethereal and despondent guitar work, a pokey tempo, female vocals and symphonic movements—thanks to the Raptured Symphony Orchestra

(a.k.a. Academy Studios proprietor Keith Appleton)—was positively visionary.

And completely misunderstood. Not just by industry suits with skin in the game, but also by journalists and underground music fans alike.

“It wasn’t a huge seller or anything,” reminds Holmes. “We were still a very underground band. It was all a mystery until we did some gigs. Back then, you had no idea of how well things were received

Trouble, until you played a town. If to what Mackintosh The Skull the gigs were busy, it was might tell you over a beer Melvins, pretty exciting.” or two. There was more Gluey Porch significant motivation Mackintosh’s recollecTreatments behind Paradise Lost to tion of Gothic’s reception is Pentagram, improve. And it started even blunter. “Reasonably Day of Reckoning with debut album, Lost shit,” says the seven-stringSaint Vitus, er. “It took a while for this Paradise. “We were thorMournful Cries record to hit home.” oughly disappointed with the first album at Nevertheless, “Goththe time,” Mackintosh ic,” “Shattered,” “Dead Emotion” and “Eternal” would force an reveals. “It wasn’t a patch on the demo, unsuspecting world to reinterpret their so we wanted to make a record that was musical reality. Gothic was new syntax. It as atmospheric as our demos, but had its was singularly responsible for an update own thing going on.” to musical vocabulary, which influenced As for the cover, Paradise Lost were and inspired directly not just musicians, one of the first to bring in a Vaughan Olbut an entire scene and all its splinters. iver-esque design quality to metal. While In truth, Paradise Lost’s second-album most album art of the day depicted a skull, ingenuity also affected death metal and a warrior, death, disease or combinations black metal proper as well. thereof, the Halifaxers abstracted Gothic’s “I guess it would have happened sooncover. It was mysterious, yet somehow fiter or later anyhow,” concedes Holmes on ting of Paradise Lost’s overtures to genres extreme music’s eventual acceptance and previously disparate. “The album cover inevitable inclusion of Gothic-like attriis actually a magnified version of the butes. “The dark element always fitted inside sleeve photo, and it’s [Matthew] well with death and doom metal. The Tuds Archer’s cardigan! I imagined I same way punks always seemed to like saw a huge volcano spluttering fire and Motörhead.” molten streams of lava running down a mountain side! Nowadays, I just see But Gothic wasn’t accidental brilliance.

Paradise Lost didn’t con the metal coma close-up of Tuds’ cardigan and a poor munity into horizon expansion, contrary album cover.” —CHRIS DICK

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recounts. “It was really bizarre and amazmetal opus or convenient counterpoint ing. Everyone was dancing. They could to Venom’s aesthetic. While listening to just feel the vibrations of it and loved it.”

“Revelation (Life or Death),” you can Metal Blade Records president Brian hear the logical step towards expanding Slagel loved it, too, signing the band in the harmonica-laced stomp of Sabbath’s 1983. After being asked to cover their own self-titled album. debut’s recording costs, Olson enlisted Thirty years after its release, Trouble his aunt to co-sign a loan. $4,500 later, still resounds as one of doom’s first and there was Trouble. finest examples—to the surprise and When “The Tempter” throbs out of the delight of its creators. “We didn’t know doom had started as a genre until two abyss with creeping organ wrapped around sharp distortion, the psychedelic influencgenerations passed, and you had people es scream loud and clear. showing up asking for the Then the trap door tears old songs,” shares Olson, open, dropping the listener later mentioning his adoMY TOP 5 into a new world of shatterration for YOB, Earth and ERIC ing heaviness and timeless Neurosis. “Then you look riffs that make boots tap around and see all these as eagerly now as in ’84. cool bands out there. ex-Trouble/ Matched with the biblical They could be influenced The Skull imagery of Eric Wagner’s by [Trouble], but they still Iron Butterfly, lyrics, Trouble established maintain their own origiHeavy a gritty sense of grandeur nality. They made doom, strengthened with each really. They just liked cerBlack Sabbath, Black Sabbath classic hook from Rick tain albums, certain bands, Wartell and Bruce Frankand stayed themselves. We Black Sabbath, lin. While promotional never would have dreamed Paranoid material referred to the we’d be a part of something Black Sabbath, album as “white metal,” like that. How cool is that?”

Black Sabbath it wasn’t some Christian —SEAN FRASIER Vol. 4

5 trouble

Trouble (a.k.a. Psalm 9)

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t’s called Trouble,” clarifies original drummer Jeff “Oly” Olson.

“Not Psalm 9, just Trouble. And [1990’s Trouble] we did with Rick Rubin, we all just call self-titled.” ¶ The proper titles to namedrop when discussing early albums from Chicago’s seminal doom outfit may confuse some, but Trouble’s impact on the genre is two-plus-two simple. With teased-hair glam rock stinking up FM radios and the Bay Area’s speed metal bristling into popularity, Trouble offered an alternative to black spandex and lightning-riding thrash.

Cobbled together in 1979 from ads seeking Illinois musicians, Trouble didn’t set out to become metal pioneers. But after tiring of covering Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin, they turned to Black Sabbath’s down-tempo apocalyptic mystique and Chicagoland’s proud history of electric

WAGNER

blues. They soon made a demo featuring songs that would appear on Trouble, recorded live at the Deaf Club in Aurora, IL—a concert venue that doubled as an activity space for the hearing impaired.

“We had this huge crowd of fans mixed with people who couldn’t hear,” Olson

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Black Sabbath, Master of Reality

4 black sabbath Master of Reality

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lack Sabbath’s early career was a bit like the book of Genesis: one act of divine creation after another. Their eponymous debut was a dark fusion of the traditional 12-bar blues they played in clubs and a heavier sound cultivated on their own. Paranoid distilled the lessons learned on their first record, and is arguably the first pure heavy metal album ever released. Master of Reality, their third album, birthed the doom genre with its leaden riffs, murky tone and fixation on war, drugs, religion and death. Few of the other records catalogued here would exist without it.

Bassist Geezer Butler says the title was a combination of recording nomenclature and the album’s dark themes; the art-

work seems perfect in retrospect, but was simply handled by the label’s art department. “Master” referred to the master

pressing of a vinyl album and “reality” referred to the record’s preoccupations.

The album was also influenced by the band’s relentless tour cycle and deep dives into drugs and alcohol.

“We had more knowledge of the studio and recording process, so we were able to experiment more [on Master],” Butler says. “We had also seen a lot more of the world by that time, and we could afford more booze and better drugs. So, with heavier living came heavier music.”

There’s nary a moment of light on Master of Reality outside of the opening track “Sweet Leaf,” which has become the international ode to marijuana even if the line was cribbed from the copy on a package of Sweet Afton cigarettes. Butler’s lyrics on “After Forever” explain how religion divided Ireland. “Into the Void” is a somber story about leaving behind a spoiled Earth in search of a new home.

The concert staple “Children of the Grave”—with one of Tony Iommi’s better-known riffs—is about the mad-

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ness of war. And then there is the sound and colossal tone that dazzled countless bands that followed: Sleep, Cathedral, Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard and the Gates of Slumber, to name a few. Listen to any of their material and the debt not just to Sabbath, but also to Master of Reality is obvious.

Butler says there wasn’t much thought given to what might happen to the record because Sabbath didn’t expect a long career. He says Master of Reality was a record born from passion that has lived far longer than expected. “The songs seemed to flow out of us,” Butler says. “We would never have believed that we’d be around this long. In those days, bands seemed to come and go. Even the Beatles had broken up and were considered passé back then. We thought we’d be lucky if we could do a couple albums and tours and then get proper jobs. We have been extremely lucky and blessed to have had such a fantastic time here on Earth.”

—JUSTIN M. NORTON

3 cathedral Forest of Equilibrium

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spent so much of my life being so close to Cathedral,” reflects vocalist Lee Dorrian. “I have some very great and fond memories that will last forever and, against the odds, I’m proud of what we achieved.” ¶ Maybe you can remember hearing Forest of Equilibrium for the first time; maybe when it had just come out. Back then, at the start of the ’90s, you were a speed freak hopped up on Swedish DM and Sud American psycho warfare. All you wanted was fast, relentless violence and punishment. Melody was caustic; clean vocals obvious and painful. Then one day you walked into a record shop somewhere in Pittsburgh, where maybe a dude wearing a Dream Death shirt was working. Maybe he had been playing Cathedral’s In Memorium demo.

“I left Napalm because I was disillusioned in many ways, and I had gone as far as I wanted to with it all,” admits Dorrian. “[Cathedral] tried not to get tied down by

what was hip, or other such restrictions; we paid little attention to what was going on around us.”

“Who’s this?” you inquired.

Dream Death guy told you it was Lee Later that same year, maybe on from Napalm Death’s new band with Gaz Saturday, December 7, you were back and the other guitarist, Adam, from at the record shop, intending to get Acid Reign, plus a Carcass roadie, guy Nevermind for your little bro. But the named Griff. cover of something else on the Just “Why’s it so slow then?” you jeered.

Arrived! shelf grabbed your attention, He ignored you to say that the drumas the work of Dave Patchett had once mer of Dream Death was in Redditch to ensnared Lee Dorrian, thus inciting a record with Cathedral. But even then friendship/collaboration that would last Cathedral’s discograthere was an overwhelming phy. Lost in its Bruegheamount of mandatory records, so you just rode out lian absurdity, you vaguely MY TOP 5 the hazy, boulder-shoulderremembered the name, but LEE ing jams while you focused, desperately needed to hear its music. instead, on the still-too-expensive Altars picture disc, “[Forest] is my favorite ex-Cathedral Cathedral album and altotally unaware how CatheBlack Sabbath, dral loomed, a monolithic ways will be,” says Dorrian.

Master of emanation summoning a “I like everything about it, Reality mental renaissance. the concept, the raw emoTrouble, tion, the sincerity and the “Cathedral wasn’t initialThe Skull ly formed as a serious band,” place it stands in time. It’s says Dorrian. “[A] bunch of the most cohesive album we Pentagram, like-minded people wanted ever made.”

Pentagram to get together and make Somewhere a church Witchfinder some extreme doom, for bell was slowly chiming.

General, ourselves as much as anyBefore you stood your Death Penalty gateway to doom metal. thing. We really didn’t think Candlemass, that anyone would get it.”

—DUTCH PEARCE Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

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DORRIAN

2 candlemass Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

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eif Edling doesn’t even know what constitutes doom metal in 2014. There are too many slow-motion tendrils extending from and curling around the main branch—something he’s told is labeled “classic doom”—to keep track of or care about.

However, when Decibel informed the riffmeister that Candlemass debut Epicus Doomicus Metallicus was voted second place in our Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time list, he was genuinely grateful, even mildly surprised. “That’s a huge compliment!” the Swede grins. “Makes me very humble. I can think of a whole bunch of records that could have ended up before Epicus in that list. Second behind the best album ever recorded in the world ever is not cat shit, as my mother would put it!”

We’re not entirely sure where feline fecal matter fits in doom metal or ordered lists of doom metal records from over the last four decades—likely a Swedish colloquialism gone awry—but nevertheless, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus sits between two of the best Black Sabbath albums ever (our collective thoughts on the matter, actually) and it, along with many of its peers, remains a pillar of influence, a beacon of origin, its advertising agency cover (courtesy of drummer Mats Ekström’s father) and bastardized Latin album title hallmarks of a genre barely out of the cemetery in 1986. That Candlemass were shaped by Venom, Accept, Angel Witch, Trouble, Pentagram and, of course, Black Sabbath is all the more surprising, considering the very same “influence template” persists to this very day.

When Edling, Ekström and guitarist Mats Björkman—nicked from heavy metallers ATC—formed Candlemass out of the ashes of Nemesis, they were laughed at. Their peers, hopelessly entranced by UFO and Thin Lizzy, scoffed at Candlemass’s funeral march and crushing heaviness. But the intrepid are rarely

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liked. At first. As France’s Black Dragon Records’ (then home to Manilla Road) 13th release, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus is now a cultural icon. Back in 1986, however, the members of Candlemass had no idea of the album’s impending import.

They were just pleased to bits to have a physical product on store shelves and, as myopic as that sounds, it’s absolutely true. “Nobody liked us,” admits Edling.

“Nobody believed in us. We were just very happy and lucky to get it out in the first place.”

If there’s one thing Edling hopes fans walk away with after experiencing Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, it’s the very same thing he walked away with after endlessly spinning Black Sabbath and Pentagram platters as a young doom metaller. “Heaviness and atmosphere, but also melody and thought!”

That’s right, Leif: heaviness, atmosphere, melody and thought. Four defining traits of “Solitude,” “Demons Gate,” “Under the Oak” and “A Sorcerer’s Pledge.” Four defining traits of Candlemass. Four defining traits of doom metal.

All hail the massiveness of Epicus Doomicus Metallicus! —CHRIS DICK

1 black sabbath Black Sabbath 46

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he rain. The bell. The thunder. Three titanic notes, a D-flat “devil’s note” tri-tone against a G. “What is this that stands before me?” sings John Michael Osbourne, and to listeners in early 1970, they had to be asking the same thing of the music. While Cream, Blue Cheer and Led Zeppelin had raised the bar for extremity in rock music, no one had ventured headlong into darkness like Black Sabbath did on their genre-defining debut album. It was uncharted territory, especially on the opening eponymous track, where only one word could be used to accurately describe the sound, mood and lyrics: doom.

Although guitarist Tony Iommi would be responsible for the huge majority of the heavy metal progenitors’ classic riffs, the key individual behind Black Sabbath was bassist Geezer Butler. “It was a mixture of me trying to play ‘Mars’ on my bass, from Holst’s ‘Planets’ suite, which I was addicted to at the time, and Tony picking up on me dabbling and turning it into the ‘Black Sabbath’ riff,” he says.

“Same idea, the tri-tone, different notes.

We knew we had something different, but we weren’t sure if anyone else would like it. We decided to throw it in at the end of a pub gig in Lichfield, and the whole place went nuts. It gave us the confidence we needed to carry on writing our own stuff, rather than the 12-bar blues stuff we were doing.”

And what of those cryptic lyrics about the Figure in Black, and Satan sitting there, smiling? “Well, it’s one of those anecdotes that seems silly over the years,” Butler says, “but at the time it was very real. I was well into black magic at the time, and was reading Malleus Maleficarum. That night I woke up in bed and there was a weird figure staring at me through my bedroom window. It was gone in a flash, but it frightened the bejesus out of me. I told Ozzy the next day at rehearsals, and that inspired the song ‘Black Sabbath.’”

Dig deeper than that much-discussed track, and you’ll find that Black Sabbath, while continuing to mine the darker side of popular music, is just as indebted to the blues and jazz as it is to rock ‘n’ roll, from the extended jams on “Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep” and the cover of the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation’s “Warning” to the furious, harmonica-driven “The Wizard.” With the exception of the cover of Crow’s “Evil Woman,” which was recorded at the request of the band’s U.K. record label, all tracks were live staples well before the band recorded the album in a furious 12-hour session on October 16, 1969. Held together by a taut, groovy performance by drummer Bill Ward, it’s one of those snapshots of a young, hungry band that can never be equaled again.

“I don’t remember much at all,” Butler admits about that legendary session with producer Rodger Bain. “The whole recording experience was new to us. It was the first time we had actually heard ourselves, since none of us had owned re-

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cording equipment. The only equipment available at the time we wrote the first two albums, reel-to-reel recorders, were way out of our monetary means, and we probably wouldn’t have known how to use it anyway. The first two albums were recorded live in the studio, with very little time for overdubs or retakes. The beauty of it was the fact that we only had two days to do it, warts and all. If we had time to dwell on it, it would never have had the feel that it has.”

One Black Sabbath deep cut that Butler has a particular fondness for is “Wicked World,” which boasts an inspired— one might even say naïve—mishmash of swing, blues and heavy rock. “This was the very first song we wrote together,” he says. “We wrote it in a run-down pub in Nechells, Birmingham. The song outlasted the pub, which was demolished soon after—probably our volume helped! We tried it at rehearsal before our 13 tour, and it sounded great. It is so different from our usual stuff, but I don’t think it would ever sound the same without Bill Ward playing it. He has that natural swing that is very rare—probably unique—in heavy rock.”

Adding to the theme of doom on the album was the artwork, which features that classic photo of a woman—the figure in black?—in front of the Mapledurham Watermill in Oxfordshire, and the more provocative inverted cross on the album’s inner gatefold. “It was both helpful and detrimental,” says Butler about the mystique and notoriety the inverted cross brought to the band. “We didn’t want to appear corny, like some bands that were around at the time, doing fake ‘virgin sacrifices’ on stage. But we had no say in the matter. My parents went ballistic when they seen it, as they were strict Catholics. I had to leave home because of it.”

When asked about the album’s legacy and the shadow it casts not only over doom metal, but the entirety of heavy metal altogether, Butler remains immensely proud of what he and his three bandmates accomplished. “I love it. I hadn’t heard it for years, until Rick Rubin made us all listen to it as a band. It still sounds fresh, and totally off the wall in places. It feels and sounds pure, and I doubt we could ever capture that again.”

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR

Can YoU FeeL THe GrooVe? the making of

Cathedral’s

The Ethereal Mirror

A

story by chris dick

ll the warning signs were there. We should’ve seen The Ethereal Mirror coming. The large majority of us didn’t. The glacial pace of Forest of Equilibrium and its overcast attitude weren’t going to be replicated on Cathedral’s second album. The Coventry-based outfit had moved on, for all intents and purposes, with tracks like “Soul Sacrifice” and “Golden Blood (Flooding)” serving as the vanguard for new sounds from new influences penned by musicians whose growth between the intervening years was unprecedented. The Ethereal Mirror was doom evolved, a near full circle back to its origins of Black Sabbath and the musical zeitgeist of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Doom metal, from Cathedral’s point of view, was no longer caged in single-digit BPMs and the misty moors of an imagined gothic England. It’s what we all wanted— well, maybe a few thousand worldwide—but didn’t get on The Ethereal Mirror.

This must be said, however: Cathedral in 1993 were radical.

The Brits had signed to Columbia via a license agreement with Earache, a deal spearheaded by ex-Earache staffer Jim Welch.

They, along with a select few, had mystifyingly transitioned from the dusty mausoleums of the underground to the big boys club of major labels and major label expectations. To us, Cathedral’s

John Hancock in Columbia’s numbers-only hands was both betrayal and a fount of excitement, but hard to fathom either way.

Additionally, Cathedral didn’t want to be locked down as an edge case death metal band. They didn’t want to be linked to their labelmates sonically or aesthetically. The boundless qualities of British progressive rock had firmly taken root inside Cathedral’s principals. Bands like Bang, Beggars Opera and Curved Air, among countless others, were the group’s way out of easy categorization and stagnation.

When singles “Grim Luxuria” and “Ride” hit in early 1993, Cathedral’s sudden brightness was shocking. They were still ultra-heavy, but at the same time, Garry “Gaz” Jennings and Adam Lehan’s riffs didn’t suffocate and consume. They illuminated—shed light on the origins of doom, heavy rock, progressive music—and grooved like a pair of corduroy bell bottoms.

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dBHoF

cathedral The Ethereal

Lee “Doz” Dorrian’s subterranean growl had also mer Mark Wharton were ready for Cathedral to Mirror changed. He was no longer the ex-Napalm Death rock socks off. Perhaps they wanted the same columbia, february, 1993 singer moaning in agonizingly slow motion. It thing, but producer David Bianco didn’t allow U.K. doom gods’ finest was almost like somebody had paid his rent for for that to happen. Bianco’s big-time producvision of disorder the next year and given him a healthy recordtion separated the Brits’ sound like no producer shopping stipend. previous. In The Ethereal Mirror, Cathedral had a When the full album hit later that winter, Cathedral fans major label production, and it’s only in recent times they’ve divided the album into likes and dislikes. “Jaded Entity,” started to appreciate what went down in Manor Studios more “Ashes You Leave” and the wild “Phantasmagoria” were in than 20 years ago.

Camp Doom. “Ride,” “Midnight Mountain” and “Enter the The Ethereal Mirror enters the Hall on the merits of its vision, Worms” took refuge in Camp Rock. The rest of the album’s bravery and heft. At the time, it sounded like Cathedral had gone tracks, “Fountain of Innocence” and “Imprisoned in Flesh,” mad, taken too many psychedelic drugs, and made an album for were left for inclusion on either side. In truth, Cathedral were an audience that didn’t exist (not since 1977 anyway). Now it’s mixed about The Ethereal Mirror. Frontman Dorrian wished for a an influential piece, still stuck between doom and rock, that has darker, more extreme vibe, while Lehan, Jennings and drumstood the test of time. Back to pinnacles high, my friends! [4]

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cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR

We really weren’t having much fun in our private lives when we made Forest. To go from that to finding yourself in New York having all your drinks bought for you by Columbia’s A&R dept, well, you’re going to cheer up a bit.

a Da M Le Ha n

Describe the thought process—musically, aesthetically and personally—between Forest of Equilibrium and The Ethereal Mirror.

We had a couple of years to build up to Forest. We put everything we had into that record. All of our darkness, angst and overall heavy vibe were put into it to make the most morose and dark album we could make. It wasn’t like we had a big future ahead of us. We never looked forward at all. When we finished Forest,

lee Dorrian:

we felt it was a very big achievement. But Forest wasn’t exactly appreciated in a wider sense.

Doom was very underground. Death metal was peaking. We were completely into the music we were making. It was more like a labor of love rather than a career or band. It was more a collective, to exercise a feeling. We never thought beyond Forest. garry Jennings: After we did Forest of Equilibrium, we discovered our love for ’70s rock bands. They

50

influenced us more. You can hear it on the Soul Sacrifice EP. When we started writing The Ethereal Mirror, we could’ve carried on in the vein of Forest.

The material is similar, but it’s not as gothicsounding, not as morose and dense. We were listening to Bang, May Blitz and other ’70s rock bands. So, it was natural to put that in our music.

The Ethereal Mirror was a mix of Trouble, Vitus and Revelation and the ’70s rock thing. You can hear it in “Midnight Mountain.” On the Soul Sacrifice EP, we realized we could up the tempo and put more groove into the songs. It opens up a whole new world. I’m sure a lot of people wanted us to write songs like “Serpent Eve” and “Ebony Tears,” but that wasn’t in us. People who bought Forest of Equilibrium and then heard “Midnight Mountain,” “Enter the Worms” and “Grim Luxuria” were in for a big surprise, even if we were influenced by the same bands. aDam lehan: We really weren’t having much fun in our private lives when we made Forest. It was pretty grim—break-ups with girlfriends, cheap beer and pot noodles, support slots with Morbid Angel, no money even to buy guitar strings.

So, to go from that to finding yourself in New York having all your drinks bought for you by Columbia’s A&R dept, well, you’re going to cheer up a bit. [Laughs] Although, it did feel a bit alien.

But we came home after that U.S. tour that we all loved from beginning to end, and we were having a bloody good time. In fact, eventually it became a problem that I was having such a good

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cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR time—I couldn’t write any doom riffs! [Laughs] Every time I sat down to try and write something morose, a bloody three-minute ’70s rock ditty would come out! marK Wharton: I didn’t join the band until after Forest was recorded, coming onboard for the Soul Sacrifice EP. Things just evolved naturally. There was never a conscious effort to take the music in a particular direction. It’s just the way our sound and style changed over that time.

Do you think people expected Cathedral to be, well, fun? I remember personally thinking, “Uh, what happened here?” Beautiful as it is, Forest of Equilibrium was such a morose album.

The Ethereal Mirror is a vibrant color wheel in comparison.

If people expect anything from bands, they’re always going to be disappointed. At the time, I think it was viewed as a more radical change than it is now. If you look back on it, it’s not that big of a departure. The Ethereal Mirror has a hell of a lot of Sabbath on it. There’s a lot of doom on it. We were also into bands on the Vertigo label. U.K. progressive rock bands. I think those things were coming through. We didn’t have a definite idea of where we were going to take Cathedral.

I think the main difference is the production. It’s massive. Forest was done for about 3,000 pounds. The Ethereal Mirror was done for a lot more.

It’s just a brighter production. There’s more separation on the instruments. If The Ethereal Mirror had the Forest production, I think it’d be a different story. Also, the musicians in the band were advancing so fast, they didn’t want to write songs like “Ebony Tears.” They probably couldn’t with much conviction. When we did Forest, it was kind of painless. I wanted to continue down the line making extreme doom records. But I think it would’ve been hard to recapture Forest again. It’s quite a groundbreaking album.

Jennings: No, not all. If you were a fan of the first record, you automatically said to yourself, “Jesus! What the fucking hell are they doing?!”

I get it. I mean, the handclaps on the demo was my idea. I thought, “We should do some handclaps!” No doom band will ever have handclaps.

They were very much in the vein of Slade, Gary Glitter and Sweet handclaps on a ’70s rock song.

I mean, fans wigging out on “Ebony Tears” won’t hear handclaps as cool. From our point of view, we had a love/hate relationship with that record.

We had done the first record. We had done the EP. We were young lads. We’re all from relatively shitty backgrounds in England. We’re not Dorrian:

well-off. All of a sudden we’re doing a record in Manor Studios—which is beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, really—for Columbia, and it’s like, “What the hell is going on?!” We had a big-shot producer who worked with Mick Jagger. We had separation on our instruments like we never had before. Everything was coming out refined. It was a strange feeling. We wanted to sound like the Soul Sacrifice EP, not a greatly produced record. For years on end, it was almost alien to us. I remember doing promo for it. Instead of promoting it, we slagged it. I have to say, if I put this record on now for somebody, I’m always pretty proud of it. lehan: Honestly, if they’d heard Soul Sacrifice and they’d seen us on tour between Sacrifice and Ethereal, they should have seen it coming, really.

Wharton: Yeah, I suppose it must have come as a bit of a shock to some people, but I think Soul Sacrifice can be seen as a stepping stone between the two albums.

I remember [producer] David [Bianco] saying to me, “Ah, Mick Jagger’s bass player wouldn’t have played the bass part like that.”

Bear in mind, I was 22.

I picked up the bass and threw it at him.

Ga r rY “Ga Z” Je nninG S There was a lot of transition—experimentation and innovation—in the early ’90s. How much of the times affected and/or influenced Cathedral?

The bands we were up against were death metal. Death metal, at that point, was very predictable. We didn’t want to be pigeonholed as one of those bands. Most of the death metal bands had frowned faces and folded arms. We might have looked down about the world around us, but we weren’t testosterone-filled blokes. We were deeply into certain types of music. We were deeply into things other than looking tough. We did experiment and explore. We didn’t want to

Dorrian:

52

play things safe. If you’re playing it safe, it’s like living death. There is the other side of it, too.

Cathedral did, honestly, go too far down experimentation’s road. I wouldn’t deny that. At least I can say we tried to be different in an honest kind of way.

Jennings: It’s a very early ’90s-sounding record.

It’s kind of weird. I still think it stands up, sound-wise. The production is really good. Some of the later records, Caravan [Beyond Redemption] and The VIIth Coming, sound dated compared to The Ethereal Mirror. When I listen to it, I’m always pleasantly surprised.

What impact did drugs have on writing The Ethereal Mirror?

I suppose they did in some way. Not a real definite way. The artwork may look that way. Here’s this central figure holding the Book of Lies that society adheres to. Twisted exaggerations of what becomes of people who have this fake sense of morality. It could look like it was viewed through a LSD trip. The lyrics are also pretty far out there. I wanted them to be fantastical. Generally, I smoked in those days, but I wouldn’t say that smoking influenced anything a great deal.

Jennings: I don’t think very much. Me and Lee took acid once. We tried to write lyrics. Like something fantastical. Actually, what you hear at the end of “The Voyage of the Homeless Sapien” is Lee doing mad ad-libbing. What he’s ad-libbing are the lyrics we tried to write while we were smashed out of our brains. You can hear me laughing. He was doing this mad crazy accent.

I was dying laughing. I couldn’t get air in my lungs. I honestly thought I was going to die that night. That was our attempt. [Laughs] lehan: For me, none. Unless you count Carlsberg and It! The Terror From Beyond Space.

Wharton: None whatsoever. We did do a lot of beer, though!

Dorrian:

Cathedral thanked a lot of bands on Forest of Equilibrium, and again on The Ethereal Mirror.

They weren’t the usual bands, however. You thanked Mellow Candle, Leaf Hound and Beggars Opera, among many others. From a fan’s perspective, the influence of bands that weren’t exclusively metal was perplexing, to say the least. What role did bands like the aforementioned play in Cathedral’s evolution?

We were obsessed with those bands.

Bands from the late ’60s/early ’70s U.K. scene.

We were really into Cressida, most bands on the Vertigo label. I could go on forever. I grew up

Dorrian:

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR

 Seeing stars

Assorted Columbia-funded promo for Mirror

listening to punk until I got into Metallica on Kill ’Em All. Apart from Venom and Motörhead, metal was a different world to me. I remember really getting into Sabbath. Naturally, we started looking around for bands of the same era. Sabbath would play with bands like Fusion Orchestra and Fuzzy Duck. You’d hear these wild names and think, “Well, what do they sound like?” It became an obsession to get old copies of Melody Maker to look at all the names in the back. Like Incredible Hulk, Leaf Hound, Comus. They were so enigmatic.

Collecting the records back then was impossible. They were so expensive. So, we tape-traded.

Since we were tape-traders of death metal, thrash and hardcore, the next logical thing was to trade tapes of bands from that era. We became fanatical. Certain elements of those groups did come through in our music over the years. We were never out to plagiarize that sound or style. We just really enjoyed their sense of freedom. I’m still fanatical about bands from the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Jennings: I put them on there for a reason. I’m glad I did it. I get people who come up to me and say, “If it wasn’t for your thanks list, I would’ve never heard these bands.” All you have to do now is click on YouTube. Back then, they were considered lesser bands. It all started for me when I heard Curved Air on the radio. Almost immediately I knew it’s what I wanted to hear.

The song was 16 years old at the time, but it was totally new to me. I had never heard anything like that before. So, of course, I got into ’70s prog and rock bands. They were doing crazy musical compositions, using all kinds of instruments.

Even though it was older, it seemed better. I

didn’t even pay attention what was happening in the ’90s, like Pantera. The only record I listened to from the early ’90s was [Trouble’s] Manic Frustration.

What do you remember about the songwriting sessions? It doesn’t sound like there was much creative restraint.

We had recorded a demo around summer of ’92. We sent it to the record company and they liked it. I felt it didn’t have enough intensity.

It felt a bit light. We didn’t use any of the songs from the demo. Actually, we used “Midnight Mountain,” which was then called “Magic Mountain,” and it had flutes on it. Very hippieish ’70s. It’s very different from the version on The Ethereal Mirror. But anyway, we toured heavily throughout the year. We knew we had an album to record at the end of the year. We knew it was a big deal. It was for Columbia Records, who were, at the time, one of the biggest record labels in the world. We were just a bunch of underground kids, who were hands-on about everything we did. As much as there was excitement, there was fear.

We carried on recording more demos down at a friend’s studio in Coventry. He had an eight-track studio in his basement. We wrote and recorded tons of stuff. Out of everything we recorded in Clive’s basement, it was just “Ride,” “Fountain of Innocence” and “Midnight Mountain” that we used on the album. The majority of the songs on the album were finalized in the studio, or written on the eve of going into the studio. Lyrically, half of the album was written in the studio.

I remember I had writer’s block. I had written loads of stuff, but I wasn’t really happy with it.

Columbia gave me 500 pounds and had me visit at

Dorrian:

54

cottage down in Penzance. It was the middle of winter. December, if I remember right. I had 500 pounds, but the cottage was right next to a pub.

[Laughs] I was reading a lot about death and getting stoned. I wanted to get deeper into death philosophies and stuff. I don’t think I came up with more than ideas. I guess they ended up as songs on the album. I think they were “Grim Luxuria,” “Jaded Entity” and “Ashes You Leave.”

Jennings: Some of the songs that ended up on The Ethereal Mirror were last-minute additions.

Those were “Jaded Entity” and “Phantasmagoria.”

When we started writing, we had quite a lot of tracks. We have one song that Adam wrote called “Azrael” that was never released. It was quite Egyptian-like. “The Olde Oak Tree” was never released until Serpent’s Gold. Same with “Violet Breath.” We had a load of acoustic songs as well.

From what I remember, I think Lee felt the album was too straight-ahead. More of a rock record.

We didn’t have much outright doom songs.

“Ashes You Leave” was the most doom song we had. I think he felt we needed something more doom-like, which is why “Jaded Entity” and “Phantasmagoria” were on the record.

Also, I do remember the running order of the album was different. I don’t know where this title came from, but the first song on side one was called “Exile,” which ended up as “Enter the Worms.” After that, it was “Ashes You Leave,” “Midnight Mountain,” and “Hide and Seek,” which was “Imprisoned in Flesh.”

The last song was “Suffocation,” which became “Phantasmagoria.” Side two had “Vortex Obscure,” which turned into “Violet Vortex,” then “Ride,” then it was “Fountain of Innocence,” “Grim Luxuria” and a song called “Sorrow’s

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR  “Trouble grunge” FTW

assorted Ethereal demos and promos

End,” which turned into “Jaded Entity,” and “Hide and Seek (Reprise),” which is now “Imprisoned in Flesh” with flutes. I think you can hear the last song on [2004’s] Serpent’s Gold. It was a pretty different record from how it turned out. lehan: Queuing up for a veggie burger with Tony Iommi! [Laughs] There was no restriction. We were all throwing ideas in there, and we had quite a lot of material written, and a lot of it didn’t make it to the album. Later on, Bianco put his neck in, but early on it was just the four of us all doing our bit. Originally, it was looking like it would be a lot more of a straight-ahead rock thing. There was no “Phantasmagoria,” “Jaded Entity” or “Ashes You Leave.” And I loved it. I thought it was going to be great. Lee was unhappy, though, with the way it was going, and so we went back and got some of the doom back in there. Looking at it now, that was the right thing to do. “Phantasmagoria” is probably my favorite track on the album.

Wharton: That’s right. We always enjoyed experimenting with different ideas. The most fun I ever had in the studio, though, was recording Statik Majik. We just hired in as many different instruments as we could think of and let rip!

The guitars on The Ethereal Mirror are massive.

Do you remember the tuning and gear used to get that sound?

I used a Marshall 800. I also had a mid-range pedal, like a Metal Zone pedal. When we did the record, I was still figuring out how to work it. I believe I hired a three-pickup SG. A white one. Very similar to the one Glen Buxton used in the Alice Cooper band. The tuning was ridiculous. We tuned six steps down. We downtuned a silly amount. It was extreme. I was the more metal guitarist of the two of us. Adam was very classy. Bluesy. He had a really nice tone. lehan: I may be mistaken, but we were tuned Jennings:

down to A, I think. It was certainly A on the Soul Sacrifice EP. I was using a JCM900, I believe, and a Boss Digital Metalizer—which I still have. There was no big secret, really. That’s just what we sounded like.

At the time, fans equated The Ethereal Mirror with Columbia. Big label meant big sound changes.

Any truth to Columbia making The Ethereal Mirror something that it’s not? Like the British version of the Black Crowes.

They certainly tried to do that with the photos. [Laughs] We rejected them all. But I don’t think they tried to pressure us on the record. They wanted us to use the producer. Josh [Sarubin], our A&R guy, was really cool. He was into the band. He wanted the record to be good.

He didn’t want us molded in any specific way. The video for “Midnight Mountain” is where it all went wrong. They said, “Give us a disco video.”

We said, “OK, we’ll give you one.” I mean, we were still a new band at the time. We were on our second album, not our fourth. I never had aspirations of being on a major label. In fact, I was against major labels. When it came our way, we decided to give it a go. A guy at the label said to me, “When you sell 450,000, I’m going to get a Cathedral tattoo on my arm.” I remember thinking, “Well, you’re gonna have a long wait.”

[Laughs] We were pessimistic about it. We were playing the game to some extent, but the whole major label thing wasn’t really in us. We were foolish.

Jennings: It was a weird situation that just happened. A band like Cathedral was on Columbia.

I don’t know what they expected us to sell. We never thought we’d sell whatever the target was. We did go along with Columbia to a certain extent. We had to do these photo shoots, with a wardrobe and everything. We had ’70s retro

clothes, but updated, modernized. They were pretty embarrassing. We just wanted to wear Candlemass and Trouble shirts. Not flairs bigger than flairs in ’71! We fought the corporate route as much as possible, in reality. Like, we wanted the record to be like Soul Sacrifice. But it sounded completely different. Produced! It sounded like a really good record. For us, we felt, “What are they doing to us?!”

Dorrian:

56

What was it like for a young underground band to have major label support?

It was weird. It was completely alien to us. This wasn’t our world. We were being flown over to New York for photo shoots. They were costing $10,000. The label would take us out to five-star restaurants and stuff. I couldn’t even afford the rent at home. I don’t think we felt too comfortable with it. I don’t want to be too cynical about it, though. We did get the chance to come to the States a lot and meet great people. We did have a great time when we were in our element.

We got to try what most bands don’t get to. We got The Ethereal Mirror out of it, too.

Jennings: We all came from poor backgrounds. We all scraped by. I had to sell my octave pedal just to get bus money to make it to rehearsals. We didn’t have money. All of a sudden, a year later, we’re in this big fuck-off studio, with a big-name producer, with meals being cooked for us. It’s like a mansion. The bedroom I had in the studio was bigger than my mom’s house. We were being taken out for meals, and as a young lad I could never dream of spending that kind of money on food. We were getting flown down to Florida to meet record company executives. We were in these big executive meetings. I remember thinking to myself, “What am I doing here?!” Very surreal.

Dorrian:

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR lehan: Odd. Weird. Annoying sometimes. But a lot easier when it came to getting a round in.

Wharton: It was great in many respects. We got to tour America, for a start. But we were more comfortable on an independent label. There was always a conflict between what they wanted from us and what we actually gave them. That’s ultimately why they dropped us.

The album title was changed last minute from Ride Through the Decay to The Ethereal Mirror.

Why didn’t the former title work?

There was also Decadence as well. Some cassettes were printed up with Decadence on them. I don’t think the label liked the word “decay” in the title. I’m not sure if I did either. That was the original title for the song “Ride.”

I just cut the title down. Ride Through the Decay worked well with the album art.

We were riding through the aftermath

Dorrian:

reflections Q&A with The Ethereal Mirror cover artist David Patchett

Cathedral cover artist David Patchett has an eye for the fantastical, for the strange, for the surreal. The British painter first appeared on Cathedral’s debut, Forest of Equilibrium. Ever since, he’s mentioned in near the same breath as “Midnight Mountain,” Lee Dorrian and the Best Doom Albums of All Time. We were able to corner—albeit briefly—Mr. Patchett to celebrate The Ethereal Mirror’s entry into the Decibel Hall of Fame.

of some perverted apocalypse. To me, none of those titles were mystical enough. I wanted a semimystical title. At the time, there were very bold and aggressive titles coming from extreme metal. I wanted our title to be different. I just thought The Ethereal Mirror one day. And it worked.

about three years by that point, so some of what they were doing also came through in the title.

Lyrically, what was happening in your head? It’s almost like a disco at LaVey’s house after a night of observing Bosch paintings.

[Laughs] That’s not far from the truth. I had an opposition to organized religion. A song like “Fountain of Innocence” had a certain religious vibe. I was brought up a Catholic. When you’re a young Catholic, you get fed all these whimsical ideas. When you face the cold reality of life after being fed all the bullshit, it makes a person quite nihilistic. I was, in my approach to religion. My opposition to religion comes through in everything. I think the band is individual. I am individual.

That’s opposite of religion to some extent. There weren’t outright attacks on religion on The Ethereal Mirror, though. I was being more subtle than that.

Dorrian:

What does the title The Ethereal Mirror mean, exactly?

Another world, as opposed to the world we live in. It’s like an acid vision of the world or society we live in. It’s good that nobody knew what it meant. People interpreted it themselves.

Everything was too definite then. Too in-yourface. We had been listening to progressive rock for

Dorrian:

How did The Ethereal Mirror cover start out?

DaViD Patchett: You’re asking me to go back in time to another age. We thought things were bad then! Lee was my only contact with the band at that time. And even now, come to think. Lee wanted gothic horror of the Inquisition kind. And the group riding into the fray to rescue the innocents like secular Knight Templars. That’s how it turned out, so that must have been the template given.

How do you start a piece like that?

At that time, I would spend a week doing a drawing on paper the same size as the panel [painting surface]. Lots of trial and error, and a fortune in erasers. I used to use carbon paper to press the drawing onto the panel. Later, I got more confident and just went straight to the painting bit.

What was the medium?

I’m pretty sure that back then I was doing backgrounds in acrylic and the fine figure work in oils. Gradually, acrylics took over as I learnt how to use the tempera technique of the Middle Ages to create perfect shading, etc.

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What’s your favorite part of the piece?

The leather jacket of the main figure turned out well, and I liked the personification of the maggots, too.

More interesting is that, at the last minute, a Cathedral member went missing and I had to go to Nottingham with my paint and get rid of his face, masking him out in the Earache Studios.

OK, so is it true you painted over Griff (a.k.a.

Mark Griffiths) with the horned warrior?

If Griff was the face that went missing from Cathedral just before the plastic got pressed, yes.

Everyone has their own interpretation of the album art. What does it say to you?

Careful, you’ll get me on the high horse. I hate nearly all religions, none more so than Christianity. For 600 years, they took great delight in torturing and torching hundreds of thousands of human beings. If they still had the power, they would still be at it today. And in a way, they are.

Today’s American administrations, ostensibly Christians to a man, have bombed seven Muslim countries in as many years. Of course, now the Muslim religion is getting as savage as Christianity has always been. So, Lee’s commission was a great chance to paint the People of the One Book in their true colors.

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR

 Imprisoned in van

Taking the boogie-doom on the road, circa ‘93

David Bianco produced The Ethereal Mirror.

How’d he come into the picture?

I don’t remember. We would’ve recorded the album ourselves, had they let us. We had to entertain a proper producer. He was a very good producer. Very good at what we did. He brought the best out of us.

Dorrian:

You recorded at Manor Studios in Oxford. What do you remember about your time there?

It was a huge mansion owned by Richard Branson. Tubular Bells was recorded there. But we

Dorrian:

never had a proper producer before. We had never been into a proper studio before. We had all this music, but it was bewildering because here we are entering this whole new world with a major label. There was also a situation where someone is dictating how a record should sound and how each individual member should play their solos.

We weren’t really into the guitar tones at the studio. We were more happy with the guitars in our friend’s eight-track studio. I remember thinking, “Oh, this is where Never Mind the Bollocks was recorded. It all sounds too polished, too clean.”

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After it was done, we had to live with it. It stuck with us for a while.

Everyone was telling us how killer it was, but to me and Gaz, it wasn’t raw enough. The Ethereal Mirror didn’t represent us. All these years later, I think it’s a great record. The production is awesome. At the time, we were dedicated to the underground and felt it was being taken away from us. We told people at the time and they were like, “What the fuck are you talking about?! It’s a killer record!” I’ve always wanted it to be a bit more raw. [Laughs] Jennings: I played the bass on the record, right? I remember David saying to me, “Ah, Mick Jagger’s bass player wouldn’t have played the bass part like that.” Bear in mind, I was 22. I picked up the bass and threw it at him. I said to him, “I’m not Mick Jagger’s bass player! I’m me! I’m a guitar player trying to play what I think a bass player would play.” I remember going home for a few days. When I came back, Adam had done some of his solos. I highly rated Adam as a guitar player.

He’s much more bluesy. He’s more into [Ritchie] Blackmore. More control and feel. I’m more manic like [Tony] Iommi. I’d let rip without much thought. The producer said to me, “The solos are really amateurish.” I thought to myself, “If he thinks Adam’s solos are amateurish, what’s he going to think of mine?!” Adam’s solos were nice and tasteful. Of course, this guy worked with musicians on a different level. We were just kids. It was quite daunting being in the studio with a big-name producer. He would come in and want to change our songs. Like “Fountain of Innocence.” He rearranged it. We never had anybody do that to

cathedral THE ETHEREAL MIRROR  Flares for the dramatic

The kids of today, not defending themselves against the ‘70s

people were around it. There we are these warriors in the background, riding through the mess of civilization. [Laughs] Whose idea was it to print lyrics in a spiral on the inside sleeve? Reading them is vertigo-inducing.

One of the main reasons was that Curved Air did it. The real reason was the lyrics were written spontaneously. I wasn’t even sure I was 100 percent into them. I shouldn’t be saying this, but I wasn’t convinced by the lyrics. That’s why they’re not in blocks. I wanted them to be presented in an esoteric way.

Dorrian:

What do you recall about touring in support of The Ethereal Mirror?

Columbia put us on a tour. The Mercyful Fate tour wasn’t really relevant. As much as I love Mercyful Fate, the tour that coincided with the album being released had us under Flotsam & Jetsam. We opened this bill. I couldn’t see what it was going to do for us. The label was telling us we’re going to be the next biggest thing in metal, and here we are an opening band. It wasn’t a radical bill. We got offered a tour with Monster Magnet and Kyuss. The crowds were smaller, but the tour was fresher. They were trying to push us into a big arena. The Fight tour was great.

Meeting Rob Halford was cool. The whole tour, he was on me about doing “Sweet Leaf” with him.

Every time it got to that point in their set, I’d rush to the back of the room. Halford would point me out in the audience. [Laughs] I was shit scared.

One night, he pulled me out onto the stage and put a mic in my hand. I thought, “Oh my god!”

That was in upstate New York, if I remember.

So, I did a duet with Rob Halford. [Laughs] I don’t think we fit with Fight either, though. On the Fight tour, that’s when things inside the band waned a bit. We were getting on each other’s nerves. I think the label, at that point, was also ready to pull the plug.

Jennings: We did the Fight tour. That went really well. The Mercyful Fate tour was really up and down. We weren’t treated the best. The band we alternated with was Anacrusis. They eventually left the tour. I remember we’d start right as the doors opened. There’d be a handful of people in the audience. Maybe less! Most people were at the bar. I think a lot of the problems in the band started with this tour. We had Scott Carlson on bass. There were divisions in the band. It was me and Lee on one side, Mark and Adam on the other.

Poor Scott was in the middle. He was friends with Dorrian:

us. It was a strange feeling. Now, listening to the version on the album, it sounds great. He did a good job. lehan: Being giddy because of the other bands that had been there. Born Again is one of my favorite Sabbath albums, and “Zero the Hero” one of my favorite songs. The grub was incredible! We were certainly very well-looked-after on that front. I remember the pub just a short walk down the canal towpath, took my baby brother in there when the folks came to visit. Took Josh from Columbia in there, too, got plastered. I remember arguing with Bianco about the sound on my guitar solos. I wanted to try and get natural reverb, have the mics well away from the amp. He didn’t. [Laughs] Ghosts. I couldn’t sleep properly. When I got in bed at night, it was like something was sat on my chest. I’d wake up gasping for air. I remember very vividly feeling something unseen pass me in a corridor and head toward Gaz’s room. Honestly.

I watched It! The Terror From Beyond Space a lot. Once the recording was done, me and Doz went to see Pantera, got backstage passes and toyed with the idea of getting involved in a drinking competi-

tion with them, even though we were both pretty much plastered already. Thank god that didn’t happen. I’d have ended up in A&E. Wharton: I loved it. The place itself was amazing. We even had our own chef! [Laughs] Not the one from the “Midnight Mountain” video, either.

When it came to recording, we spent a lot of time getting the drums sounding right, and then it took me about a week to get the tracks done.

After that, it was great to sit back and watch the whole thing come together! It was clear as soon as the guitars were being put down that the whole thing was going to sound immense. Personally, I enjoyed working with Dave. I think he got the best out of me and I’m very proud of that album.

David Patchett reprised his cover art role. Like the music, it’s thematically dark, yet full of color.

What do you remember saying to David when it came time to paint the cover?

I did want it to be more psychedelic and more vibrant than Forest. I wanted there to be a central figure, an angel that’s not to be trusted.

The angel’s holding the Book of Lies. All these abnormal, adverse effects that morality has on

Dorrian:

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everybody. It was all petty stuff, but it built up.

The band fell apart after that.

Lehan: That’s when things started to go wrong, really. We were on tour in Europe with Penance and Sleep, and I ended up getting a gut complaint that meant I couldn’t drink. It was a bloody awful feeling, like having a really bad gut hangover, but it never stopped. My own fault. I’d been drinking too much and not eating well enough for quite a while. But it’s not much fun being the only sober guy at the party. There are times when I really do think that if I hadn’t had to be sober on those last two U.S. tours, I probably would have ended up staying. The sober thing certainly made our problems a lot worse. I’m the kind of guy who will usually avoid conflict at all costs when I’m sober, so a lot of stuff that really should have come out into the open didn’t. It just festered on the inside.

Wharton: Going across America in a tiny van with Brutal Truth is something I’ll never forget!

When you’re a young Catholic, you get fed all these whimsical ideas. When you face the cold reality of life after being fed all the bullshit, it makes a person quite nihilistic. My opposition to religion comes through in everything. I think the band is individual. I am individual. That’s opposite of religion to some extent.

Le e D o rria n The Ethereal Mirror was, to some degree, an entry point to heavy music for a lot of music fans.

What’s it like to have people tell you the music had great impact on them?

It’s amazing! A lot of people pick out the first three Cathedral albums as having some impact on them. There wasn’t much like Cathedral at the time. It’s flattering when people tell you you’ve influenced them.

Jennings: It’s nice, of course. I never set out to write for anyone else but me. I write music for myself. You never really expect your music will stand the test of time. Not 20 years later. Sabbath is my biggest influence ever. Same with KISS and Witchfinder General. I’m pretty sure if I went up to Gene Simmons and said, “Hotter Than Hell changed my life,” it wouldn’t be something he hasn’t heard before.

Lehan: I love them for it, but it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t feel worthy of the praise.

Wharton: It’s incredibly flattering. It’s strange to think that something you did so long ago has influenced people and been part of their life.

There are people out there who have grown up with this album and listened to it their entire life. That’s really very humbling.

Dorrian:

What was the video-making process like for “Ride” and “Midnight Mountain”? Adam playing the “Midnight Mountain” lead with a chef’s spoon was pretty hilarious. Still is.

We didn’t like “Ride” because it was too slick. We had to get a friend to rough it up a bit.

It cost a fortune. Like $35,000. We just wanted a “B club” vibe, but it turned out [to be a] real slick, MTV-like rock video. Wasn’t really us. “Midnight Mountain,” we went to town on that one. In many ways, that backfired. [Laughs] We were totally frustrated. The way the Columbia deal had started to change. People thought we were ridiculing everything. That we were taking the piss, but we weren’t, really. Behind all the comedy, there’s a bit of angst. We were very frustrated.

Jennings: They were embarrassing! The “Ride” video, the original, was like Top of the Pops. That was the idea. Usually, the band would be close together, with the drums in the front. The singer would be behind the drummer. We tried that, but the video director had a script and wanted none of it. That’s when we went to Pinewood Studios, which was home to a lot of British films from the ’60s and ’70s. We went down there to do “Ride.”

The director hired dancers. They were really attractive women. It wasn’t what we were about.

When we saw edits of it, me and Lee thought, “Nah, this isn’t what we want to be portrayed as.”

Not sure if you know this, but [Venom’s] Mike Hickey [ex-Carcass/ex-Venom] was doing stand-in bass in that video. For “Midnight Mountain,” I think Columbia told us they wanted a disco video.

We thought, “OK, we can do that. We’ll give you a disco video!” It’s mad for a reason. [Laughs] Dorrian:

What did you guys walk away with after The Ethereal Mirror cycle had run its course?

A broken-up band. Everything was fucked for us. It was up to me and Gaz to pick up the pieces and soldier on. Columbia was lost. We had a tour with Sabbath lined up in the beginning of 1994, and we didn’t even have a band. We went through a couple of years of having people guesting with us. We had Barry Stern from Trouble on drums. Before that, we had Joe Hasselvander and Victor Griffin from Pentagram. They did the Sabbath tour. We had hired hands for a good couple of years. It was a disillusioned time. We

Dorrian:

63

never expected major things to happen with Columbia, so when it did fall to shit, we weren’t that surprised. There was no happy ending for us.

[Laughs] Jennings: I was disillusioned. It was a reality check. We knew we didn’t want to be the next big whatever. We weren’t going to sell loads of records. We knew it.

Lehan: I walked away full stop! Although Statik Majik came afterwards and I was on that release, as we’d recorded it previously, I was long gone by the time it came out. So, those last two Ethereal U.S. tours were my last; and, in fact, after leaving, I tried to get a band of my own going and failed miserably, ended up working in a nightclub. It’s only now, all these years later, that I’ve started tinkering again.

Wharton: I think we wanted to get things back to a more normal kind of level. I remember we did a photo shoot in a field with a dog, which Columbia hated and refused to use.

Any regrets about The Ethereal Mirror?

You know what? As much as I said all this negative stuff, I don’t think so. It all happened for a reason. The fact that it all fell apart made us more determined to not be beaten by it.

And to carry on. We did carry on for a good 20 more years. No regrets, really.

Jennings: Changing it? No, not really. It would’ve been a different record had we not done what we had done. Looking back, it’s quite advanced. The structures. We were only 22 years old at the time.

It’s a great record for a bunch of young guys.

There’s great energy on that record.

Lehan: I really should have punched the guy that nicked Mark’s chips.

Wharton: None. I think it’s a great album and I’m proud to have been part of it. Regrets about leaving Cathedral might be a different story! A Dorrian:

The Key

Not Iron MonKEY, obviously, but a handy-dandy numerical guide to the art featured in Mark Rudolph’s fantastic cover illustration.

Epicus, Doomicus, Back Issuicus!

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