Most of the time in music, slower often means softer. Doom metal, on the other hand, begs to differ about that, and with the suffocating atmosphere the genre's music can create, it's not hard to see why doom metal can be just as (or perhaps even more) terrifying compared to other, faster genres.
- Musically speaking, the atmosphere that doom metal creates can be best described as crushing thanks to the instruments being played at near-glacial speeds, all of which are accentuated with bass-heavy production that give it a sense of oppressive weightiness. Vocals are not much better either, whether they be harsh growls, pained screeches, or mournful clean singing, and they often serve to make the already-grim music feel even more hopeless.
- Lyrics are often loaded to the brim with gloomy subjects, which can include depression, drug addiction, self-harm, misanthropy, or nihilism, making doom metal songs extremely bleak to listen to.
- Subgenres are no better. Let's have a look, shall we?
- Sludge metal can be best described as doom metal with a hefty dose of hardcore punk's "fuck you" attitude and breakneck speed, and that's not even getting into bands that choose to incorporate elements of grindcore, industrial, Harsh Noise, or powerviolence into their sound. Expect vocals that are less screamed in a traditional Metal Scream sense and more like the crazed ranting of a madman, plenty of noise and feedback that makes the music sound absolutely grating to listen to, and plenty of tempo shifts that only add to the crazed and unhinged atmosphere of sludge metal.
- There's blackened doom metal, which combines doom metal's heaviness, sense of dread and crushing atmosphere with black metal's shrieking vocals, tremolo picking, focus on Satanism/occultism, and rawness. Even worse, stuff like blackened funeral doom and blackened death-doom also exist, and they manage to make the aforementioned genres even creepier than they already were.
- Death-doom takes death metal's growled vocals, bludgeoning riffs, and hammering drums before slowing them all the way down, creating music that does its best to crush whatever hope remains within listeners into dust. And yes, it also includes the gory lyrics present within death metal, making it even nastier to listen to.
- Funeral doom is what happens when people look at how slow and crushing death-doom is and say "challenge accepted". The result is something that more than lives up to its name thanks to the agonizingly slow (even for doom metal) pace that propels most songs in that genre along with the dreary atmosphere resulting from funeral doom's emphasis on pure, unadulterated despair. Safe to say, funeral doom is best seen as Despair Event Horizon in musical form.
- Drone doom is described as the Drone of Dread made into an entire genre, and it's more than accurate to that description due to how bands within that subgenre make liberal use of infrasound's fear-inducing properties to scare listeners.
- Acid Bath: Despite the over the top amount of death and gore in their songs, they avoid narm through a combination of lyrical imagery that runs the gamut from Surreal Horror to things that should not be done to the human body, and vocals that switch between slow and melodic Stoner Metal, classic black metal snarling, and distortion effects just barely on the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley. All of this is often juxtaposed with images of youth, beauty, and innocence. Here are some lyrics for the viewer's enjoyment:"Jezebel": "She screams bloody murder as they chop off her fingers. So this is how it feels to die"
"Scream of the Butterfly": "She runs through fields of daisies. Yeah, it's just a shame that they eat their own babies."
"Venus Blue": "I eat the razor, a mouth full of God's flesh. Sweating this blackness, I'm shitting this cold death."
"The Mortician's Flame": "I can smell abortion on you, I can see through, I take the gun out of my mouth and point it at you." - Admiral Angry:
- A bottom heavy sludge metal band from California. Think Queens of the Stone Age instrumentation slowed down to a crawl with shrieking Sunn O)))-esque vocal stylings. Never has a band name been so fitting
. - The majority of the album Buster was written by the guitarist while he was dying of complications from cystic fibrosis, and it shows in the sheer atonal profound hatred of man.
- A bottom heavy sludge metal band from California. Think Queens of the Stone Age instrumentation slowed down to a crawl with shrieking Sunn O)))-esque vocal stylings. Never has a band name been so fitting
- Battle of Mice: The vocals from this post-metal band are downright creepy. Two songs that take the cake are "Bones in the Water" and "At the Base of the Giant's Throat", the latter getting special mention because of the 911 phone call at the end. Even knowing that its origins are comparatively innocent doesn't make it anything other than intensely disturbing.
- Black Sheep Wall: Sludge Metal nutcases. Think Meshuggah slowed down to about half the speed, with the hatred dialed all the way up.
- The Body: Take the drone metal of Sunn O))) as mentioned below, and combine it with industrial tones and outright Harsh Noise and lyrics not so much screamed in a Metal Scream sense and more screamed like the singer is being slowly and painfully tortured, and you have The Body.
- Electric Wizard: "I, The Witchfinder".I am albino, evil witchfinder
I'll cleanse her sins, for witchcraft I condemn her
My implements of torture are bloody red
Your confession to sorcery will leave you dead
I'll pierce her flesh to find his mark
Torture, my pleasure, true servant of the dark - Katatonia: "Untrue". It begins with a slow, mournful riff played on clean guitars, which is repeated many times, then suddenly explodes into a heavy death-doom passage accentuated by Mikael Åkerfeldt's growling vocals...and then the heavy part is over as suddenly as it began, and you're back to the non-distorted riff until the song fades out.
- Khanate: They are known to be this in musical form, what with the psychotic lyrics and/or Alan Dublin's deranged shrieking that makes up the vocals for their songs. Behold.
- Kyuss: "Freedom Run. Free to run. Freedom run..." But watch the video for "Demon Cleaner" to see a whole new level of terrifying.
- Neurosis: The title track of "Through Silver in Blood." It's a lumbering, apocalyptic dirge of a song.
- The interlude tracks on Through Silver in Blood qualify too, consisting largely of chaotic drumming, droning guitar feedback, and apocalyptic spoken word samples ruminating on various esoteric topics.
- Their collaboration album with Jarboe (whose work with Swans and solo material is its own well of Nightmare Fuel) is definitely this. Even the album cover is creepy; it's a drawing of a hand with a large gash in it that has a fly crawling out of it.
- Oak: "The House on Reed's End Road". The title basically says all with that song, and the eerie, haunting opening riff doesn't help. The vocals emit whining, dramatic and a ghastly moan, with some lyrics depicting a classic haunted house scenario to boot. Others are just as terrifying, what with titles like "The Witch, Cross and Stream" and the ever chilling title of the final track, "In Graveyards, On Darkened Nights".
- Ocean Chief: Most songs are just straightforward stoner doom metal songs, such as "Galleons from the Sun." However, twelve minutes into the song, we get a Jaws like, somewhat creepy melody, and at 13:10, when you least expect it, a freaking monolithic riff tears through that could startle Chuck Norris with ease. And after it goes back to the Jaws melody, you keep expecting it to get heavy again, but it just loops over and over, and fades out of existence. Tobias' creeping chanting of "I am the one..." at the end doesn't help much, either.
- Reverend Bizarre has a little-known single version of their song "Slave of Satan", which has a satanic speech in the beginning not featured on the album version. Some find it distinctly unnerving, with demonic voices chanting "Shemhamforash" in the background while the man rants on against all things Christian.
- Sunn O))):
- They have very disturbing songs, even if the vocals don't say much; they're usually just screams. The sheer darkness of their music is enough to give nightmares. See for yourself.
- There's also Sunn O)))'s "Bathory Erzsebet". For those who don't know, this is a song in which famed black metal vocalist Malefic was recorded while performing vocals inside a coffin. Malefic is claustrophobic. The microphone outside the coffin records his vocal performance - one inside just records his terrified breathing.
- The Iron Soul of Nothing, a remix of their first album by Nurse with Wound, reaches new levels of horror with the song "Ash on the Trees", which blends the band's usual Drone of Dread with emotionless chanting, cryptic lyrics, random, unexpected noises like breaking glass, and ghostly wailing to create a very unnerving experience.
- They have very disturbing songs, even if the vocals don't say much; they're usually just screams. The sheer darkness of their music is enough to give nightmares. See for yourself.
- Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine:
- "The Smiler", where vocalist Lee Dorian gives an incredibly tortured vocal performance which sounds like a man on the edge of a dreadful acid trip. It will rattle your spine.
- There's also "He Who Accepts All That Is Offered", from the same album, a scarily realistic monologue of drug abuse and its consequences.
