Traditional and Epic Doom Metal

I decided to create a thread for my favorite kind of Metal. Traditional Doom is Black Sabbath influenced bands like Saint Vitus, Trouble, The Obsessed, Pentagram, etc. Epic Doom Metal expanded on Trad Doom with (you guessed it) more epic arrangements and operatic vocals and is represented by bands such as Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus. This excludes other kinds of Doom like Death/Doom, Funeral Doom, Drone, Stoner, etc. Is anyone else a fan of this music? What have you been listening to?

Wheel and Under the Sun for me.

Also Miradors but its a little more prog queensryche vibe but has some Traditional Doom elements

I don't listen to doom metal often, but when I do I like it all - traditional doom. sludge, biker rock, death doom, blackened doom, post-doom, etc. and to a lesser, extent, stoner.

A few favorites include:

- Place of Skulls / Victor Griffin's In-Graved
- Forsaken - "After The Fall" album
- Doomenicus - "Endless" EP
- Nick Leonard - "Revelation"
- Orange Goblin - "Frequencies From Planet Ten"
- Trouble - 1st album, "Manic Frustration"
- Crowned In Sorrow - "In Memoriam"
- Under The Sun - "Man Of Sorrow"
- Kyuss - "Welcome To Sky Valley"

Songs by Saint Vitus, Veni Domine, Candlemass, Black With Stars, Starchild, Nomad Son, Goliath, Callisto, Khemmis, Pylon, Faith SWE, Sweet Cicada, Cathedral, and many others.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1312RGqEgBcrdKGB0XgrnU

Lately I've been getting into post-rock, which sometimes has strong doom elements.

mothy wrote:Wheel and Under the Sun for me.

Both quality bands. I have all three Wheel albums and the Under the Sun album.

Constantine wrote:I don't listen to doom metal often, but when I do I like it all - traditional doom. sludge, biker rock, death doom, blackened doom, post-doom, etc. and to a lesser, extent, stoner.

A few favorites include:

- Place of Skulls / Victor Griffin's In-Graved
- Forsaken - "After The Fall" album
- Doomenicus - "Endless" EP
- Nick Leonard - "Revelation"
- Orange Goblin - "Frequencies From Planet Ten"
- Trouble - 1st album, "Manic Frustration"
- Crowned In Sorrow - "In Memoriam"
- Under The Sun - "Man Of Sorrow"
- Kyuss - "Welcome To Sky Valley"

Songs by Saint Vitus, Veni Domine, Candlemass, Black With Stars, Starchild, Nomad Son, Goliath, Callisto, Khemmis, Pylon, Faith SWE, Sweet Cicada, Cathedral, and many others.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1312RGqEgBcrdKGB0XgrnU

Lately I've been getting into post-rock, which sometimes has strong doom elements.

That's a solid list. I like quite a few of those bands. I wish that some of the bands that are labeled "Christian" got a little more play in other circles. I think that kind of segregated labeling is really quite silly and unnecessary in Traditional Doom Metal where Christian lyrics and imagery were/are foundational to the genre.

Some of my favorites are:

Black Sabbath (the fathers of Doom)
Trouble
Saint Vitus
The Obsessed
Count Raven
Pentagram/Death Row
Place of Skulls/Victor Griffin
The Hounds of Hasselvander
Iron Man
Internal Void
The Skull
Paul Chain Violet Theatre
Revelation (first album)
Pale Divine (Cemetery Earth)
Wheel
Black With Stars
David Benson
Goliath
Pylon (The Eternal Wedding Band)

Candlemass
Memento Mori
Solitude Aeturnus
Tyrant (Hereafter)
Last Chapter
Well of Souls
Forsaken
Evangelist
Nomad Son (First Light)

Oh yeah, forgot about Last Chapter.  Their CD's are out of print and they're not on Spotify.

Who is Wheel?   The only Wheel I know of is a Finnish heavy prog. metal band, they're more like Gojira than actual doom metal.

Have never gotten real into the genre, but I enjoy:

Place of Skulls: With Vision
David Benson: Evil Killer
Victor Griffin’s In-Graved
Last Chapter: The Living Waters
Trouble: Psalm 9
Most of Black Sabbath’s catalogue

I find myself gravitating more and more to solely Christian music, but have a few secular bands I still enjoy - mostly out of nostalgia.  Here are some of my favorites:

Christian:
Dawn Of Anguish
Faith
Forsaken
Last Chapter
Nomad Son
Place Of Skulls
Pylon
Under The Sun
Warpriest

Secular:
40 Watt Sun (they've got a new album coming out soon though it seems that they've left the metal behind)
Albert Bell's Sacro Sanctus
The Gault
Mourn (my wife HATES the vocals hahaha)
Warning

I suspect most of y'all are familiar with most of those I listed, though The Gault is criminally underrated and quite unique IMO.  This song is easily in my top 10 trad/epic dooooom songs:

Constantine wrote:Oh yeah, forgot about Last Chapter.  Their CD's are out of print and they're not on Spotify.

Who is Wheel?   The only Wheel I know of is a Finnish heavy prog. metal band, they're more like Gojira than actual doom metal.

The first Last Chapter album is available for cheap: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?sort=price%2Casc&limit=25&master_id=461556&ev=mb&ships_from=United+States

Wheel: https://wheeldoom.bandcamp.com/

Pethead wrote:Have never gotten real into the genre, but I enjoy:

Place of Skulls: With Vision
David Benson: Evil Killer
Victor Griffin’s In-Graved
Last Chapter: The Living Waters
Trouble: Psalm 9
Most of Black Sabbath’s catalogue

I hadn't either until I did a deep dive in 2020. I was always attracted to Extreme Metal in my youth and thought Doom was going to just be boring, slow stuff. Boy was I wrong. Trad Doom is actually mid-tempo a lot of the time. I was also attracted by the fact that a lot of Trad Doom bands had Christian or Christian friendly lyrics and I could enjoy the great, foundational bands in a way that is often hard with the Extreme sub-genres.

Kerrick wrote:I find myself gravitating more and more to solely Christian music, but have a few secular bands I still enjoy - mostly out of nostalgia.

Trad and Epic Doom are the one area of Metal where I haven't really found that distinction all that useful. If you take a close look at a lot of the early Trad and Epic Doom bands you'll see that a lot of them had Christian or Christian friendly lyrics.

A lot of inspiration for Trad Doom comes from Black Sabbath (not just musically but also in lyrics and imagery). Sabbath, especially early on, wrote a lot about good and evil and uniformly warned against evil (which is represented by the devil). The members of Sabbath had a Christian background and remained at least nominally Christian (some to this day) and so the Christian God represents good in their songs. This is especially true on Master of Reality (the template for Doom Metal) and not just on "After Forever," but also on "Lord of This World," and "Into the Void."

Trouble, obviously, followed most closely with more explicitly Christian lyrics, especially on The Skull which is my favorite of theirs. All of their first four albums have some openly Christian lyrics. Eric Wagner's other projects such as The Skull also ooze Christian spirituality.

Saint Vitus only has a couple of songs with a Christian subject ("Saint Vitus" and "Prayer For the Masses"), but took a stand in the liner notes of an early release where they described why they chose their named and called themselves a "band of believers." They said that "the things that we stand for are that the original, old-style metal still lives, and that you can be in a loud, raunchy hard-core heavy metal band and not have to praise the devil! Thank God for that!" A lot of their lyrics deal with fantasy or real-life issues such as substance abuse.

Count Raven has some Christian spiritual themes and generally positive social lyrics especially on the first album.

Ironically, the members of Pentagram all became Christians and by the time the album "Last Rites" was released they all explicitly thanked God in the liner notes. The most recent album "Curious Volume" has a great song called "Close the Casket" which is very Christian and a good commentary on their spiritual journeys. Of course, Victor Griffin's band Place of Skulls is explicitly Christian, while Joe Hasselvander's The Hounds of Hasselvander has occasionally Christian lyrics such as on "Take Up Your Cross" and "Coming of the King."

Iron Man has some pretty Christian tracks such as "Harvest of Earth." Check out the album entitled "The Passage."

Internal Void's first album thanks God (and I believe a Baptist Church) in the liner notes. On the back is the text "God washes the eyes with tears until they can behold the kingdom where thou shalt cry no more." Interestingly, they don't write about Christian themes much but have the occasional song such as "Standing On the Sun."

Revelation is pretty clearly made up of Christians or at least John Brenner the main songwriter is a Christian. The first album "Salvation's Answer" is pretty Christian throughout.

Paul Chain, who was in Death SS, apparently had some kind of conversion, put out an EP called "Detaching From Satan," and started using Christian imagery. He uses a phonetic gibberish language so there are no lyrics to speak of.

Candlemass, while not Christian, often handles biblical stories and Christian themes in a Christian friendly way such as on the song "Samarithan." The whole "Tales of Creation" album is a largely positive, Christian-influenced concept album.

Memento Mori, while also not Christian, has some rather Christian tracks especially on the very solid "Songs For the Apocalypse Vol. IV." Listen to the songs "Memento Mori" and "I Prayed." You wouldn't know they weren't written by an explicitly Christian band.

Lyle Steadham, who wrote a lot lyrics for Solitude Aeturnus, is (I've heard) a Christian. Listen to "It Came Upon One Night" for a very Christian song.

I'm not sure if the guys in Evangelist are actually Christians, but they like to write about Christian history and "Deus Volt" is a really cool Epic Doom album about the Crusades from a Christian perspective.

Even bands that we might consider Christian such as Place of Skulls, Forsaken, Nomad Son, Last Chapter, and (to some extent) Pylon are just considered Doom by most people without any qualifier because it's not unusual in any way for a Doom band to express Christian beliefs/themes.

I think that's enough to give an idea about the high degree of Christian influence in Doom and why I think it's the most Christian of the metal subgenres

I have a doom, epic metal list on Spotify with these bands: Khemmis, Trouble, The Skull, Manilla Road, Warlord, Place of Skulls, Candlemas, Solitude Aeternus, Argus and others.

If Warlord: The Holy Empire counts, put that on my list. Great album.

Ahem...did someone say DOOOOOOM

Trad doom and epic doom metal is basically my screen name and fave genre for nearly 50 years!

Son of Nun wrote:

Kerrick wrote:I find myself gravitating more and more to solely Christian music, but have a few secular bands I still enjoy - mostly out of nostalgia.

Trad and Epic Doom are the one area of Metal where I haven't really found that distinction all that useful. If you take a close look at a lot of the early Trad and Epic Doom bands you'll see that a lot of them had Christian or Christian friendly lyrics.

[lots of excellent information, not quoted here for simplicity]

This is a valid point though in many instances, I'd rather just straight-up [clean] secular lyrics over quasi-Christian ones.  You mentioned Black Sabbath which is a good example.  It's been a long time since I've looked at any of their lyrics so my memory's a bit fuzzy, but while they do have some seemingly overtly Christian lyrics, IIRC others are spiritual but not remotely Christian.  While some of their members wear crosses, it doesn't appear that they're actually practicing Christians.  To me, that's reason to tread very carefully since you now have, in a way (and most likely quite innocently) "wolves in sheep's clothing" so to speak, if that makes sense?

I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on Pentagram.  I never really looked into 'em much though I know Victor Griffin is (or was?) back in the band.  That's awesome to hear that they're all believers now!  I wasn't aware of that.  I may have to check 'em out more now.  I sampled a few of their earlier lyrics and they don't seem bad at all.  I recall seeing that Bobby was accused of negligence of his elderly mother or something.  Do you know what the outcome of that was?

Solitude Aeturnus is an interesting one.  I remember stumbling up on them early in my metal fandom career haha and falling in love with their music.  IIRC their first few albums had quite Christian lyrics, but then Robert Lowe started writing their lyrics and they became pretty anti-Christian.  He's an interesting one because he's done [guest] vocals on a few Christian projects but then some of his other stuff is especially un-Christian-friendly.  I think Candlemass had some pretty anti-Christian lyrics when he was a part of them too, though again, it's been a long time since I looked into it.

I saw Saint Vitus live when Wino was still with them.  They put on a very good show though are definitely not Christian.  Wino made some news with a anti-government-overreach post on social media regarding covid and whatnot.  So he gets thumbs-up from me, and I believe SV's guitarist is on the same wavelength too haha.

Kerrick wrote:This is a valid point though in many instances, I'd rather just straight-up [clean] secular lyrics over quasi-Christian ones.  You mentioned Black Sabbath which is a good example.  It's been a long time since I've looked at any of their lyrics so my memory's a bit fuzzy, but while they do have some seemingly overtly Christian lyrics, IIRC others are spiritual but not remotely Christian.  While some of their members wear crosses, it doesn't appear that they're actually practicing Christians.  To me, that's reason to tread very carefully since you now have, in a way (and most likely quite innocently) "wolves in sheep's clothing" so to speak, if that makes sense?

I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on Pentagram.  I never really looked into 'em much though I know Victor Griffin is (or was?) back in the band.  That's awesome to hear that they're all believers now!  I wasn't aware of that.  I may have to check 'em out more now.  I sampled a few of their earlier lyrics and they don't seem bad at all.  I recall seeing that Bobby was accused of negligence of his elderly mother or something.  Do you know what the outcome of that was?

Solitude Aeturnus is an interesting one.  I remember stumbling up on them early in my metal fandom career haha and falling in love with their music.  IIRC their first few albums had quite Christian lyrics, but then Robert Lowe started writing their lyrics and they became pretty anti-Christian.  He's an interesting one because he's done [guest] vocals on a few Christian projects but then some of his other stuff is especially un-Christian-friendly.  I think Candlemass had some pretty anti-Christian lyrics when he was a part of them too, though again, it's been a long time since I looked into it.

I saw Saint Vitus live when Wino was still with them.  They put on a very good show though are definitely not Christian.  Wino made some news with a anti-government-overreach post on social media regarding covid and whatnot.  So he gets thumbs-up from me, and I believe SV's guitarist is on the same wavelength too haha.

I would say that aside from the Christian or Christian-friendly lyrics that most of the bands I mentioned have pretty clean lyrics aside from occasional cussing in some instances.

I'm not aware of any Black Sabbath lyrics that are spiritual in a non-Christian (new agey?) kind of way. My favorites are the first three albums (though I listen to the following three occasionally and a couple of the Dio albums rarely). Outside of lyrics about good and evil, they mostly wrote social songs critical of governments and war, a couple humorous songs (N.I.B, Fairies Wear Boots), and a couple about drugs (The Wizard, Sweet Leaf). Outside of Sweet Leaf, Master of Reality is more Christian than a lot of albums labeled "Christian Metal!" Geezer Butler was apparently very Catholic as a youth but struggled with it over the years and I think is non-religious now. Tony Iommi has always considered himself Catholic (to this day) although not really a churchgoer. Ozzy is a mystery though some say he was/is Anglican and would pray backstage. Bill Ward is probably not religious but in recent interviews he said they all believe in God, that they wore the crosses because they felt God would protect them on the road and from weirdos at their shows, and that they were very upset that the label snuck an inverted cross into their first LP. I think they're like a lot of Boomers that were inundated by the anti-"organized religion" rhetoric of their age and developed a kind of nominally Christian but anti-church mentality. They certainly seem more rooted in Christianity than many Boomer hippies who went in a new age direction (which I've never sensed in their music).

Pentagram definitely had a more questionable early phase than any of the other bands I mentioned. They clearly went through a phase that a lot of young men do where they were fascinated by the darkness. Having said that, their early lyrics are not anywhere near as bad as you might expect and nowhere near as bad as a lot of Thrash, Death, and Black Metal bands were writing back then. Really there's only a few songs that might raise an eyebrow depending on how strict you are. A couple songs like "Sinister" and "Burning Saviour" deal with the temptation of a person whose soul is in agony and the choice to made. They are told from the tempter's perspective so that is a potential issue. Victor told me he doesn't play those two songs live anymore which I presume is because he'd be uncomfortable singing them. I see on one of my DVD boxes that they did perform "Sinister" in 2012 though I don't know if it was the instrumental version or if Victor was fine with Bobby singing it (or if he got more strict since then). I talked to Bobby too and he said he was 15 when he wrote some of those lyrics and they're a "bunch of crap." He said it's "what's inside that counts" (referring to his belief) and he seems unbothered about performing the old songs, etc. I don't know much about the incident you refer to though I recently bought the documentary about him so we'll see if there's anything on there. There's a LOT of good Pentagram material with lyrics that are fine but you'll have to sift through the first few albums and see if anything bothers you. The Death Row compilation "Alive in Death" is pretty clean too. Victor was on the most recent two albums and all the band members had become Christian by then (including Bobby) so I think you can feel good about those if nothing else. I really appreciate their story.

Victor wrote this on the insert of one of their DVD releases: "Truth can easily be veiled by fables. To continually perpetuate a fable is to cultivate deception. From 1981 Death Row through Pentagram, this has often been the case...sometimes in our personal lives and sometimes within the framework and lyrics of the band. But truth never changes while deception will eventually be exposed. The rock n roll fantasy of darkness that once was protocol with Death Row and Pentagram still has an association in the sense that our past contributes to who we become. But the actual partnership has been dissolved. Within the lyrical content of Death Row/Pentagram the truth we were aware of was often hidden with darkness...and many have chosen those images to glorify the band to this day. But we have since chosen to accentuate and reflect the more positive nature of our songs...and in fact, the more positive direction of our own lives. The darkness we once glorified as strength only contributed to the constant turmoil and discontent within the band...leading ultimately to struggle and failure. Only when re-uniting in recent years with some hard-earned wisdom and a new outlook on faith did our paths become enlightened and prosperous...We thank you for traveling this road with us and hope you will be encouraged as we are. No matter what time and chance throws at us...given opportunity, light will always overcome darkness."

The first three Solitude Aeturnus albums are their best and I think Lyle Steadham wrote most or all of the lyrics on those so they are clean with occasional Christian lyrics. I haven't paid much attention to them after that though I did pick up their fourth album "Downfall" recently. I've browsed some of their later lyrics and while I wouldn't classify anything I saw as anti-Christian, they had certainly become more secular. Rob Lowe writes a lot of depressing, emo lyrics.

Candlemass has definitely gotten a little more loose in their handling of religion and they seem a little more into dark fantasy/horror type stuff maybe? I don't know because I'm not that interested past the first four albums which are rather clean and even often positive. I did read the lyrics for "King of the Grey Islands" with Lowe on vocals and it's a sort of concept about depression, substance abuse, and suicide. I don't know how any Doom collection could not include "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" which is near being the greatest album of all time.

Wino is definitely into some new agey stuff and has that stereotypically Boomer spiritual but not religious mentality (though his politics do, indeed, seem to be based). He tends to keep those spiritual views in some of his lesser-known side projects like The Hidden Hand. I don't really have any problems with Vitus lyrics and they are definitely Doom legends.

Solitude Aeturnus rules mightily! I love the first two albums. The first one I bought was Through the Darkest Hour(the 3rd album) and while I liked it, it was not until I heard the first two that I realized their greatness.

Trouble rule, of course.

Saint Vitus and Pentagram are legends.

I am a charlatan when it comes to Candlemass. I only own From the 13th Sun. It's my favorite of their output and the only one I've ever connected with.

My favorite doom album is While Heaven Wept - Of Empires Forlorn

One I did not see mentioned, but is a doom classic is Solstice - New Dark Age.

Revelatiom - Yet So Far is great
The Obsessed - first three albums rule
Cathedral - early albums are the best

I recall Warning - Watching from a Distance being solid as well.

oldschooldoom wrote:Ahem...did someone say DOOOOOOM

Trad doom and epic doom metal is basically my screen name and fave genre for nearly 50 years!

Drop some knowledge on us. What are your favorites? Any lesser known gems?

flat circle wrote:Solitude Aeturnus rules mightily! I love the first two albums. The first one I bought was Through the Darkest Hour(the 3rd album) and while I liked it, it was not until I heard the first two that I realized their greatness.

Trouble rule, of course.

Saint Vitus and Pentagram are legends.

I am a charlatan when it comes to Candlemass. I only own From the 13th Sun. It's my favorite of their output and the only one I've ever connected with.

My favorite doom album is While Heaven Wept - Of Empires Forlorn

One I did not see mentioned, but is a doom classic is Solstice - New Dark Age.

Revelatiom - Yet So Far is great
The Obsessed - first three albums rule
Cathedral - early albums are the best

I recall Warning - Watching from a Distance being solid as well.

That's funny because for some reason the songwriting on SA's Through the Darkest Hour really stands out to me and I'm currently enjoying that one the most.

Regarding Candlemass:



You GOTTA get Epicus! Those first four are some of the most peerless Metal ever recorded!

I do like that Revelation you mentioned, but not so much the second album which seems pretty boring. Yet So Far is a little more midtempo which I like. The debut is almost thrashy (which I also like).

I've heard about While Heaven Wept but it didn't click in the limited time I gave it. Definitely very progressive Doom. Same thing with Warning. I have their other album but it hasn't clicked. It's pretty different stylistically from what I usually dig.

I've heard of Solstice and have been meaning to give them a try along with Scald and Ereb Altor (though I find the idea of using Norse concepts in Doom pretty weird).

Don't really care for Cathedral.

I've heard Epicus and Nightfall. Heck, I used to own Nightfall, but I just never loved it.

Dang! I totally forgot about Scald. An excellent album!

I totally understand about Cathedral. Lee Dorrian is not a good vocalist and certainly an acquired taste.

Got a good chuckle out of the Biden meme.

Cheers and doom on, sir!

Son Of Nun:

Regarding Black Sabbath, I'd have to look again.  It was probably two decades ago that I looked into 'em and remember being turned off but I don't recall specifics now.  I do remember the inverted cross on a band photo which is probably the one you mentioned.

Regarding Pentagram, I'll have to do some digging, but if some "evil" lyrics early on are within the full context of repentance and redemption, I could look past those pretty easily.  Similar to if there was an album or movie all about violently persecuting Christians, I wouldn't have any desire to see it.  BUT... if there was an equally violent album or movie about Saul persecuting Christians and then his conversion, that'd be a different story.  Thanks for sharing the info about them; you've got me reconsidering them now!    I'll be curious to hear what you learn from the biography on Bobby.  Do you know if Victor Griffin is still in the band?  The Metal Archives says he no longer is.

As for Solitude Aeturnus, I glanced through some of their lyrics and the worst offenders seem to be in their album Adagio.  Maybe there's some context I'm missing, but on the surface they're not too great...

Ah, according to the Metal Archives:

https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Bobby_Liebling/4618

Bobby was arrested in 2017 on charges of first-degree assault and vulnerable adult abuse with physical injury against his 87-year old mother; later that year he plead guilty to "abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult custodian" and was sentenced to serve 18 months at the Montgomery County Detention Center.

Son of Nun wrote:

Kerrick wrote:This is a valid point though in many instances, I'd rather just straight-up [clean] secular lyrics over quasi-Christian ones.  You mentioned Black Sabbath which is a good example.  It's been a long time since I've looked at any of their lyrics so my memory's a bit fuzzy, but while they do have some seemingly overtly Christian lyrics, IIRC others are spiritual but not remotely Christian.  While some of their members wear crosses, it doesn't appear that they're actually practicing Christians.  To me, that's reason to tread very carefully since you now have, in a way (and most likely quite innocently) "wolves in sheep's clothing" so to speak, if that makes sense?

I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on Pentagram.  I never really looked into 'em much though I know Victor Griffin is (or was?) back in the band.  That's awesome to hear that they're all believers now!  I wasn't aware of that.  I may have to check 'em out more now.  I sampled a few of their earlier lyrics and they don't seem bad at all.  I recall seeing that Bobby was accused of negligence of his elderly mother or something.  Do you know what the outcome of that was?

Solitude Aeturnus is an interesting one.  I remember stumbling up on them early in my metal fandom career haha and falling in love with their music.  IIRC their first few albums had quite Christian lyrics, but then Robert Lowe started writing their lyrics and they became pretty anti-Christian.  He's an interesting one because he's done [guest] vocals on a few Christian projects but then some of his other stuff is especially un-Christian-friendly.  I think Candlemass had some pretty anti-Christian lyrics when he was a part of them too, though again, it's been a long time since I looked into it.

I saw Saint Vitus live when Wino was still with them.  They put on a very good show though are definitely not Christian.  Wino made some news with a anti-government-overreach post on social media regarding covid and whatnot.  So he gets thumbs-up from me, and I believe SV's guitarist is on the same wavelength too haha.

 Rob Lowe writes a lot of depressing, emo lyrics.

But he seems like such a cheerful fellow...