| Claw |
| GRAFSTEEN DIAGRAMMEN! |
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 Posted 27-07-2001 23:16 by Claw |
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"What is Doom Metal?" (www.doom-metal.com)
This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer and has been the issue of many heated debates. There are however a few things that we can be certain about.
Doom-metal is a sub-genre of the highly diverse metal genre. This means that the first criteria will always be that the music must be metal at its core. There are also many misconceptions about what metal really is, but we will leave that discussion for now.
Now while the general public might think all metal music sounds the same, anybody who ever looked into the genre in depth can tell you that this is not the case. So what makes Doom-metal so different from the other metal genres? One answer is that Doom-metal is filled with heaviness, darkness, sadness, depression and melancholy. It has a dark and brooding atmosphere to it that can not be found to such intensity in any other genre.
For some, the earliest examples of doom metal albums are Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album, and their second LP, "Paranoid". Both of these records were released in 1970 upon a hugely unexpecting audience. While the first album still had a heavy tinge of Sabbath's blues roots, "Paranoid" remains one of their darkest records.
This leads some people believe that Black Sabbath are the originators of doom-metal, but we don't share that point of view. True, Black Sabbath are one of the founders of modern heavy metal! But claiming that Black Sabbath is a doom band is like saying that *all* metal bands are doomy because they depict the dark side of music. Still, it must be said that Black Sabbath heavily influenced the bands that truly helped form the genre of doom-metal.
In the same way as Black Sabbath played a major part in creating the entire metal genre it also did with Doom-metal. And several forms of doom metal have always existed since 1970 or so, but most doom bands are from the late 80s onward. Bands like Trouble, The Obsessed and Candlemass were some of the earliest doom-metal bands. It is believed that the Candlemass album "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" originated the phrase "doom-metal" to describe this style of music, though some believe the term comes from the Black Sabbath song "Hand of Doom". Most modern day doom bands still have trouble surpassing their ultra heavy sound. All these bands also used clean vocals. It is a much-made misconception that a band needs to have grunts to be part of the doom-metal genre.
For a full overview of the history of Doom-metal it is better to visit that section of our page. However one more thing that is still worth mentioning about it is that fact that the bands we talked about so far could be called the more traditional Doom-metal bands. While there are still a great deal of good bands around that play this style (Solitude Aeturnus for example) they have for a large part been replaced by a sort of "second generation Doom-metal", the Doom-metal most fans will know. This further fuels the debate of what truly is doom-metal.
Modern day Doom-metal, also known as Death/Doom-metal, is thought of by many as a reaction to death-metal, just like death-metal originated from thrash metal. As a reaction to the hyper fast death-metal riffs some bands started playing ultra slowly, with low-pitched guitars and dragging grunts. One of the nicest examples of this is Lee Dorrian, formerly the vocalist of Napalm Death, who started his own band: Cathedral. The early Cathedral albums were extremely sloooooow.
This brings us to another thing that can be used to define doom-metal. It is slow music, in sharp contrast to most metal. The fact that a lot of Doom-metal (but not all!) is played at a slow pace has given rise to critics that say that doom-metal is a "boring" genre in which nothing ever happens. We will not argue that there of course are some really bad, unoriginal bands out there who indeed are boring (as in any genre), but in general saying that Doom-metal is boring means that one has not been paying attention to the music. One of the true arts about Doom-metal is that it can be extremely slow and not boring at all. Naturally this also depends on the listener.
It has been mentioned to some extent before but let us also stress that the sheer heaviness of the music is very important for the Doom-metal genre. This can show itself in many shapes, from the gut crushing sounds of a band like diSEMBOWELMENT, to the Sabbath-like riffs of St. Vitus, to the trancendal sounds of Esoteric, to the romantic depression of My Dying Bride. All these bands share a quest for heaviness in their music. At times, this also leads Doom-metal close to another genre called "Stoner-rock". Both genres clearly strive to create the heaviest sound ever and often intermix (indeed there is such a thing as Stoner/Doom). However one misconception made by a lot of Stoner fans is the notion that pure Stoner rock or Stoner/Doom is the only form of Doom (sometimes referred to as "True Doom" by fans). This is a bit silly to say the least. On the other hand the ignorant ideas of some Death/Doom fans that theirs is the only true form of Doom-metal is equally silly, this being the cause for many a heated debate. We would rather concentrate on the great diversity Doom-metal has to offer us.
In all fairness trying to define doom metal according to its sound is like trying to define a race solely by its appearance. In today's rather varied market, we still have slow, hurtful doom metal. We have medium-paced, harmonic doom metal. We have occasional moments of really fast doom metal. We even have doom metal you can play at a Pagan sacrifice ritual. Although it isn't strictly essential, we have many doom-metal bands that employ harmonic instruments such as the violin, synthesiser, flute, and so on. We even have doom metal being mixed with other styles such as techno-industrial (this never gets much approval), black metal or classical music (this is more likely to be accepted).
-Claw
Death Metal heerscht! Check de nieuwe Suffocation en Prostitute Disfigurement!!!  (Veel beter dan Doom Metal  )
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Nou maar lang genoeg zeuren bij Paul 
