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posts about doom metal. (page 1.)

mar de grises is another one of the bands i found out about in my favourite record store. they are a chilenian band producing intense and melodic death/doom/post metal tunes. by intense, i mean: not just powerful and heavy, but also interesting. the first piece i want to present is from their second album, draining the waterheart. it’s one of my favourite songs, heavy, but beautiful:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

the second song i want to present is from the same album, but a slower, less brutal song, having only clean vocals:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

the third song is the opener of their debut album, the tatterdemalion express. again, a more powerful, heavy song, also having many slower, calm parts:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

the last song is from their newest album, streams inwards:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

sunn o))) is to music what david lynch is to film. if you have seen some of lynch’s more obscure movies, such as eraserhead and inland empire, you know how strange, disturbing these films can be. these are films you either like or hate, and to see them you have to be in the right mood. the drone doom duo sunn o))) is very similar, only that they make music and not films.

the music is dark, or more like pitch black. or even blacker than that. it is disturbing. strange. creepy. more art than music. and definitely nothing you should listen to when being in the wrong mood. the following piece, orthodox caveman from their album black one, is a very good example of their music.

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

they also did a joint album with the japanese doom band boris, which resulted in the album altar. unfortunately, the studio versions are not really available on youtube, so here’s a live version of the opener etna. sorry for the bad sound quality (though for a concert recording it’s actually pretty good)…

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

agalloch is another band i stumbled about while browsing my favourite record store in zurich. during their existence, they produced four full-length albums ranging over different styles. i particularly like the latter three: the mantle, ashes against the grain and marrow of the spirit.

unfortunately, all songs from the mantle are only playable on youtube for certain regions (in which i’m not living apparently). there are a couple of live recordings available, but i prefer the studio versions, especially when listening to the songs the first time. in case you can find them somewhere, the lodge and the hawthorne passage (featuring a quote from det sjunde inseglet) are two very good songs on that album. it is unfortunate that i can’t include these songs here since they are rather different, compared to the songs i present below.

from the album ashes against the grain, some songs are available on youtube, for example not unlike the waves, a dark, atmospheric and heavy song with both clear vocals and distorted screaming:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

another song i really like from that album is the opener limbs. the second song i want to present is from their newest album marrow of the spirit, released november 2010. it is called black lake nidstång and has a duration of over 17 minutes. it’s my favourite piece from that album, and not that easy to digest.

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]
[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

update: someone uploaded the complete song together with a very nice photo show:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

finally, here’s another piece from marrow of the spirit, called to drown. the first half is rather calm, while the second is more and more dramatic, until the music evolves into noise and finally into sounds of water, sounds of waves.

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

kauan is a band from russia, whose lyrics are in finnish and russian. starting as a folk/doom metal band, they continuously changed their style and now fit into the post rock category. i randomly stumbled about one of their albums on amazon, since for some reason one of their album was wrongly labelled as an album by mar de grises. i liked the songs i tried on youtube, especially orkidea from their second album tietäjän laulu. orkidea is a rather calm song, with heavy guitars only appearing seldomly:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

another very beautiful piece is valveuni from their newest album, aava tuulen maa. beautiful melodies and soundscapes await the listener:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

finally, here’s a piece from the first album lumikuuro, showing the darker, doomier side of the band’s past. opposed to the above two songs, this one contains growls:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

some years ago, while browsing my back then favourite cd shop, i stumbled about an album by a band called capricorns, having the somewhat strange name river, bear your bones, with songs such as broken coffin of the venerable king. when trying to look at the lyrics to see what they are writing about, i noticed that there are no lyrics. so i tried that album out, and was greeted by a 30 seconds beep, which then evolutes into a nice instrumental rockscape. i enjoyed it so much that i bought the whole album. here’s the first track:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]

the second piece i want to present is a song from their debut album, called comrades in tears. this one comes with a nice video with many time lapses:

[[for legal reasons, i do not want to include youtube videos here anymore. please click on this link to watch the video at youtube.]]