The Doom/Sludge/Stoner thread

Marc Mason wrote:

How about 'Battle Metal' and 'Mythical Occult Metal'? Two more divisive tags I came across tonight.

How come nobody mentioned that The Ocean have themselves a more up-to-date title than 'Precambrian'? I did not know this. Their newest title is called, Pantheon of the Lesser. Ya hear it?

If I'm not mistaken "Pantheon of the Lesser" is an album by a separate band called "Ocean".

Torche are certainly a cool band that fans of the Stoner/Sludge variety of metal should check out. I picked up the self titled about a month ago and I love it. I've also heard "Meanderthal" and its definitely an improvement and one of my favorites of the past year. The Hard Indie Rock vibe that they have is unlike any other band I've heard, which gives them their own unmistakable stamp, and that is always a plus for me.

Very familiar with the Post-Rock instrumental thing, like Pelican, Red Sparrowes, Russian Circles and Mouth of the Architect. Folks here truly are missing out bigtime by not looking into these bands. Hugely musical, these bands are.

Our friend detuned just steered me towards a Stoner Rock outfit by the name of Spiritual Beggars. I'm checking out a few of their songs now and they certainly are stoney. Name of current song: 12 Mushroom Tea Girl.

Marc Mason wrote:

Our friend detuned just steered me towards a Stoner Rock outfit by the name of Spiritual Beggars. I'm checking out a few of their songs now and they certainly are stoney. Name of current song: 12 Mushroom Tea Girl.

They've changed vocalists since that record and polished up their sound a good bit. That's why I recommend the On Fire album. - But I do like the early records as well.

Alright, yeah. I hear the difference. I'm listening to a track from 'On Fire' right now. This stuff is right up my dark, deserted alley. Surprised I never heard of them before. What state are they from?

I'm listening to GRAND MAGUS right now. And, this band is realer than Real Deal Holyfield. These guys know how to bring The Doom. Behind Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus and Trouble, I might be looking towards these guys for your Traditional Doom. Their 'Iron Will' and 'Wolf's Return' are hot, yo! Who else down with these mos?

Marc Mason wrote:

Alright, yeah. I hear the difference. I'm listening to a track from 'On Fire' right now. This stuff is right up my dark, deserted alley. Surprised I never heard of them before. What state are they from?

They're from Sweden.

Oh, snap. All hats off. Sweden does it again. Speaking about them over there, how about that guy from Candlemass, what's his name, this Leif Edling clown, his earlier band, Abstrakt Algebra. What about them?

Abstrakt Algebra was during his Candlemass days. His first band was Nemesis and they were pretty simple doom stuff in the vein of the Epicus Doomicus Metallicus album. I highly recommend it.

Apologies if either of these 2 have been mentioned already, but I don't feel like reading through 4 pages looking for them. I picked up these 2 disc recently, never hearing of either one. Both are good stoner metal.

Sir Hedgehog
http://www.myspace.com/sirhedgehog
They do a nice mash-up of Call Me by Blondie with Children of the Grave. Good stuff!

Admiral Browning
http://www.myspace.com/admiralbrowning
These guys are all instrumental. Fans of Pelican would dig this. Word of Warning: The cd I purchased, Maiden Voyage, is a pretty low-budget affair. The cd is silver-press and has a nice label, but the booklet looks like a color-photo copy and there's no back insert. It came in a slim-line jewel. I only paid $4 bucks for it, so I'm not gonna get my panties in a bunch over it, but if you dig on this, don't pay alot for it.

Doom is a genre I've never really explored very much, although I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan and have the debut from Trouble. Ive heard some Candlemass and they appear to be the obvious next step in the doom direction for me. Is there anything I should be pursuing next? and how far does doom stretch in terms of diversity? because I generally get bored listening to several bands that sound essentially the same and utilize the same style. Thanks in advance.

Doom, I think definitely has some diversity in it. Ya got traditional-doom, epic-doom, funeral-doom, death-doom, and so on and so on.
traditional-doom always seems to me to closer in sound to older Black Sabbath with a more stripped-down sound. Other sub-genres like epic-doom seem to aim for a more well, "epic" feel. Some of these bands sometimes use strings or keyboards to aid in that effect and some don't.
Most would classify Candlemass as epic-doom along with Isole, Solstice, Solitude Aeternus and the like.

Funeral-doom is one sub-genre I'm not as familiar with mostly because I usually don't like the ultra-super-depressing doom,and that's what this sub-genre certainly is.
This is stuff designed to make you want to leap from the top of tall buildings or sit in your room and open up your veins.
This stuff is generally played super slow and makes me feel like I'm walking through molasses. If ya like this type of doom I might recommend Evoken as they seem to have gotten this sort of thing down pat.

There are other types which use death-metal style vocals and lyrics, hence the term death-doom and the sub-genres could go on and on.
I'm sure others on this board could point you to more sub-genres and bands within them as there are probably a ton more that I don't know about.

Trial by Fire wrote:

Doom is a genre I've never really explored very much, although I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan and have the debut from Trouble. Ive heard some Candlemass and they appear to be the obvious next step in the doom direction for me. Is there anything I should be pursuing next? and how far does doom stretch in terms of diversity? because I generally get bored listening to several bands that sound essentially the same and utilize the same style. Thanks in advance.

Check out this thread:

http://www.heartofmetal.net/rip-f4/gawd-i-love-doom-metal-t4960.htm

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Apologies if either of these 2 have been mentioned already, but I don't feel like reading through 4 pages looking for them. I picked up these 2 disc recently, never hearing of either one. Both are good stoner metal.

Sir Hedgehog & Admiral Browning

Will be looking into these bands next. Thanks for the heads-up.

Trial by Fire wrote:

Doom is a genre I've never really explored very much, although I'm a huge Black Sabbath fan and have the debut from Trouble. Ive heard some Candlemass and they appear to be the obvious next step in the doom direction for me. Is there anything I should be pursuing next? and how far does doom stretch in terms of diversity? because I generally get bored listening to several bands that sound essentially the same and utilize the same style. Thanks in advance.

The genre is about as diverse as the Post-Rock you're already familiar with, and it shares plenty of elements with it. I would go for a Candlemass recording first. Start with the most recent one, King of the Grey Islands, and then grab, Tales Of Creation and Nightfall. Those, I think, are the best. Then, ya got Grand Magus, Solitude Aeturnus and Trouble's catalog. Cathedral if you like music that sucks. lol. Oh, snap! DO NOT overlook Witchcraft. This band is of the Pentagram mold. One of my recent favourites, by far. Witchcraft's The Alchemist and Trouble's Simple Mind Condition are about the most accessible Doom albums you'll find out there right now. Both should have garnered these bands some mainstream attention, but the mainstream is full of mindless dolts.

Been also checking out some of these second tier groups, like Isole, Electric Wizard, Forest Of Shadows and Memory Garden. All of these above mentioned are Traditional Doom to one degree or another. Like Svengo, I also have no use for Funeral Doom. I have one title by a band named Ahab, and I can't understand how someone would want to hear this kind of morbid drone for more than a few minutes. Then, there is an actual sub-genre called Drone, which is literally just that. You wouldn't believe that they're actually calling this stuff music. Bands like Moss and Nadja are actually pretty hot right now too. But, it's all just 'fuzz' going on for 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time.

Marc Mason wrote:

Then, there is an actual sub-genre called Drone, which is literally just that. You wouldn't believe that they're actually calling this stuff music.

I think you've been checking out the wrong bands. Drone can be quite beautiful stuff in the right hands, listen to any of the following albums. I enjoy Drone because it brings influences from ambient and avant-jazz into the mix.

Earth - Hex
Earth - Hibernaculum
Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

All of these are drone, but with almost no "fuzz", mostly clean toned guitars, some sparse keyboards...but they create great moods. The last album of the three features jazz guitarist Bill Frisell in a guest appearance.

It's late night mood music...or TM music...or just music that sounds great with herbal tea and other herbs.

detuned wrote:

Marc Mason wrote:

Then, there is an actual sub-genre called Drone, which is literally just that. You wouldn't believe that they're actually calling this stuff music.

I think you've been checking out the wrong bands. Drone can be quite beautiful stuff in the right hands, listen to any of the following albums. I enjoy Drone because it brings influences from ambient and avant-jazz into the mix.

Earth - Hex
Earth - Hibernaculum
Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

All of these are drone, but with almost no "fuzz", mostly clean toned guitars, some sparse keyboards...but they create great moods. The last album of the three features jazz guitarist Bill Frisell in a guest appearance.

It's late night mood music...or TM music...or just music that sounds great with herbal tea and other herbs.

Is that all instrumental music or do they have vocals?

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Is that all instrumental music or do they have vocals?

All instrumental.

If you're going the all-instrumental route, ya definitely need to be checking out the really talented outfits like Red Sparowes, Pelican, Russian Circles and Mouth of the Architect. These boys know what's up. Not no stinkin' moanin' and dronin'. Alot of that stuff sounds like if you left the microphone a bit to close to the amps.

Some in this thread may be interested in this as it kinda falls under the post-metal banner.

I just came across a download that Isis has made available off their upcoming record. There seem to be some slight differences from their previous stuff,(almost like they're being influenced a bit by those they've influenced), but I think it's some pretty good stuff.

http://www.dailyrindblog.com/audio/isis_20minutes40years.mp3

What about SAHG?

Sahg II, Witchcraft - The Alchemist, Candlemass - Grey Islands, Solitude Aeturnus - Alone, Trouble - Simple Mind Condition, Giant Squid - Metridium Fields, Baroness - The Red Album.

These seven recordings are still my favourite Doom-flavored outings from the last three years. I consider all of these to be within the same genre, but, I'm sure that others wouldn't. The one common link here is Doom. They all have got it to variable degrees, although one might say that this one is Sludge, and the other is Post-Rock. Question is: Are all of ya familiar with all of these yet? If you listen to all of these over the course of a day or two, you're faith in the genre will be completely restored. I can't picture a better collection of discs from any era.

Witchcraft is the one band I don't think fits in that list, don't get me wrong, that's one of my favorite albums of the last couple years. But I hear different influences at work in their music...sure, there's some Sabbath and Pentagram...but overall you can hear elements of T. Rex, 13th Floor Elevators, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, etc. They are more melancholy than morose in tone.

Yeah, I can see that whole early-70's thing in their sound. But, they fit. Put it this way, if you saw all of those recordings lumped together, and then I threw The Fleet Foxes or U2 on top and asked you pluck out the one album that didn't fit, it wouldn't be the Witchcraft outing.

Read about these guys in some British music mag my boss subscribes to. I think they'd fit nicely into the stoner/retro/doom category...The Black Spiders

http://www.myspace.com/theblackspiders

EDIT: add these guys too...The Lions
http://www.myspace.com/lionstheband

I checked out the Black Spiders not long ago.....kinda Black Sabbath played with Turbonegro's attitude. Not far off Mammoth Mammoth really.

You guys need to check out a band called "Radio Moscow", I saw them at SXSW and they were great. They're a bunch of young kids aged 19-24 from a little town in Iowa.

http://www.myspace.com/radiomoscow