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Funeral doom

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Funeral doom
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsMid-1990s, Finland
Typical instruments
Regional scenes
Other topics

Funeral doom is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that crosses death-doom with dirge music.[1] Low-tuned guitars, death growls, instruments that emulate Pipe organ sounds and ponderous pace are typical traits of this style.

History

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An offshoot of death-doom, the genre was mostly inspired by the work of Autopsy, Winter, Cathedral and early Paradise Lost. Funeral doom truly came into being in the mid-1990s, especially Finland.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Thergothon is frequently pointed out as the progenitor of the genre, alongside Skepticism and Unholy.[2][6][9][10][11][12][13][14] Outside Scandinavia, the lines between death-doom and funeral doom pioneers were less clear cut. diSEMBOWELMENT, from Australia, Birmingham-based Esoteric, and American act Evoken are examples.[2][3][15][16][17][18]

With the turn of the millenium came releases of newer bands, such as Shape of Despair, Mournful Congregation, the "Nautik Doom" group Ahab and one-man-projects Nortt and Doom:VS.[9][19][20] Funeral doom scenes cropped up over the world, such as the one in Russia.[21] The Solitude Productions label, for example, became a major force in shaping it's future.[22] Like no metal subgenre before it, the internet boom greatly helped funeral doom reach new fans.[9] By the 2010s, funeral doom reached into metal's mainstream.[23]

Another sign of funeral doom's increasing status was Peaceville's move to buy the rights of Avantgarde Music's back catalogue.[24] Responsible for launching the careers of Autopsy, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema, Peaceville was the major player in shaping what became known as death-doom.[25] This now meant that Peaceville had a significant stake in funeral doom's history: it owned all of Thergothon's and Unholy's discography, along with two Evoken albums.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32]

Although it has a substantial following, funeral doom has also it's share of criticism. Chronicles of Chaos co-editor Pedro Azevedo argued that, to the average listener, funeral doom might sound "boring and repetitive".[33] Ciarán Tracey, in an article for Terrorizer, acknowledged that the increasing popularity of funeral doom also meant that it now had it's "share of hangers-on and can act as a repository for pseudo-literary teen poetry and artless abstraction, so a certain critical scrutiny has become necessary."[9]

Musical style

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Coc's Azevedo described funeral doom's core sound as a mix of "downtuned guitars, ponderous drumming, church organs and cavernous death vox" done at an "extremely slow" pace. Though it kept death metal's low-tuning and death growls, funeral doom eschewed most it's complex song structures and rapid tempo changes in a favor of a minimalist approach and slower tempos. Depending on the band, it keeps some genre-specific characteristics of death-doom, such as violins and female vocals.[33] Some background elements - church bells, keyboards or synthesizers - are many a time part of funeral doom's overall sound, adding a "dreamlike" quality to what is often described as a heavy and burdensome atmosphere.[34]

Funeral doom's name has two distinct genealogies. One source claimed it was a namesake of Norway's death-doom outfit Funeral.[35] It might have come, too, from Skepticism's pipe organ-like keyboard timbre, which reminded listeners of funeral music.[36] Keyboardist Eero Pöyry said that "I position myself as a church organ player in a metal band".[37] Furthermore, Pöyry explained that, at the time,

Many bands were either using [keyboards] as background, almost like an effect, and others were using it like a second solo guitar, using keyboard solos and all that. Neither of those felt like ours. I kind of thought what a keyboard player in a metal band like this should be like. It should be like the organist in a church. In that lineup, the organ became much like what the second guitar would have been. The way to position it in the sound was church organ-like. Thinking through all the things you should do and not do… I started taking it in the organist direction instead of soloist direction [...]. It’s pretty much a church organ setup in a metal band as well.[37]

Themes

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Thematically, funeral doom avoided the "Peaceville Three"'s gothic sensibilities in favor of a more nihilistic world view, evoking a sense of emptiness and despair. Thanatology topics such as grief, loss and suicide are central to the style.[14][33][34][38] Apart from that, thematic content varies widely. Thergothon's lyrics were inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.[7] Ahab notoriously wrote whole concept albums based on Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick.[20] In turn, Esoteric experimented with a variety of psychotropic substances - LSD, magic mushrooms and cannabis - to explore the obscure recesses of the unconscious mind. Their dark take on psychedelia inspires music and words that resemble a soundtrack to a "bad trip".[39]

References

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  1. ^ Davis, Cody. "Funeral Doom Friday: FUNERAL MOURNING's Blackened, Deadly Inertia of Dissonance (A Sermon in Finality)". Metal Injection. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
  2. ^ a b c Hinchliffe 2006a, p. 44.
  3. ^ a b Bickle, Travis (27 July 2011). "EXTREME DOOM PART II: Matt Skarajew of Disembowelment/Dusk". We Wither. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  4. ^ Fernández, Sergio (14 November 2006). "ESOTERIC (Eng.)". Queens of Steel. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
  5. ^ Silenius & Gam (19 December 2004). "EVOKEN Interview - Funeral doom from the pits of darkness". NIHILISTIC HOLOCAUST - Underground Death metal webzine!. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
  6. ^ a b Lawrence, Dan (31 October 2018). "A Guide To The Glorious, Miserable World Of Funeral Doom". Bandcamp Daily. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  7. ^ a b Bickle, Travis (29 July 2011). "EXTREME DOOM PART III: Niko Skorpio of Thergothon". We Wither. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  8. ^ KwonVerge (7 November 2005). "Funeral interview (11/2005)". Metal Storm. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
  9. ^ a b c d Tracey 2006, p. 55.
  10. ^ Hinchliffe 2006b, p. 54.
  11. ^ Dick, Chris (31 December 2012). "Top 5 Funeral Doom Songs". Decibel Magazine. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  12. ^ Davis, Cody (4 November 2016). "Funeral Doom Friday: Celebrating 25 Years of Funeral Doom with THERGOTHON's Fhtagn-nagh Yog-Psothoth". Metal Injection. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  13. ^ Minton, Kelly & Selby 2009, p. 56.
  14. ^ a b Wiederhorn, Jon (2 February 2017). "Doom Metal: A Brief Timeline". Bandcamp Daily. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  15. ^ Bickle, Travis (25 July 2011). "EXTREME DOOM PART I: John Paradiso of Evoken". We Wither. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  16. ^ Davis, Cody (3 November 2017). "Funeral Doom Friday: DISEMBOWELMENT's Genre-Defining Classic, Transcendence Into the Peripheral". Metal Injection. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  17. ^ Kelly, Kim (3 April 2012). "An Interview with Inverloch (Mems Disembowelment), Who Are Welcoming Dusk...Subside EP". Brooklyn Vegan. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  18. ^ Davis, Cody (29 April 2018). "Funeral Doom Friday: ESOTERIC and Their Brilliant Debut, Epistemological Despondency". Metal Injection. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  19. ^ Bloodaxe, Mathias (27 July 2011). "Mournful Congregation – The Unspoken Hymns". VoltageMedia. Archived from the original on 26 November 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  20. ^ a b Davis, Cody (29 June 2018). "Funeral Doom Friday: Remembering AHAB's The Call of the Wretched Sea". Metal Injection. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  21. ^ Kelly, Kim (13 September 2013). "A Light-Hearted Chat with Siberian Funeral Band Station Dysthymia". Vice. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  22. ^ Doom-metal.com (16 July 2015). "Interview with Solitude Productions". Doom-metal.com. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  23. ^ Goldsmith, Zachary (8 November 2018). "EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: EVOKEN STREAM THEIR NEW ALBUM, HYPNAGOGIA". Kerrang!. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
  24. ^ "Mission". Avantgarde Music. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  25. ^ Evdokimov, Aleks (9 July 2018). "Interview with Peaceville Records (Label)". Doom-metal.com. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  26. ^ "Thergothon – Stream From The Heavens (2009, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  27. ^ "Unholy – From The Shadows (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  28. ^ "Unholy – The Second Ring Of Power (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  29. ^ "Unholy – Rapture (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  30. ^ "Unholy – Gracefallen (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  31. ^ "Evoken – Quietus (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  32. ^ "Evoken – Antithesis Of Light (2011, CD)". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  33. ^ a b c Azevedo, Pedro (19 November 2004). "Doom Metal: The Gentle Art of Making Misery". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  34. ^ a b Ebner 2010, p. 28.
  35. ^ Evdokimov, Aleks (22 April 2018). "Interview with Funeral". Doom-metal.com. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  36. ^ Kannisto, Janne (29 April 2018). "The March: Skepticism Documentary (2018)". Retrieved 1 April 2020 – via YouTube.
  37. ^ a b Rosenthal, Jon (9 October 2018). "The March and the Stream: Skepticism Revisits The Re-Mixed "Stormcrowfleet"". Invisible Oranges. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  38. ^ Dick, Chris (23 July 2012). "The Myth of the Peaceville Three". Decibel. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
  39. ^ Göransson, Niklas (3 March 2017). "Esoteric interview". Bardo Methodology. Retrieved 2020-03-28.

Bibliography

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  • Ebner, Arne (25 July 2010). Ästhetik des Doom (PDF) (Bachelor) (in German). Macromedia University of Applied Sciences for Media and Communication – Cologne. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
  • 'Harry' Hinchliffe, James (2006). "Funeral Doom/Drone Doom: Hearse Play". Terrorizer. 143. London: 44–45.
  • 'Harry' Hinchliffe, James (2006). "Thergothon - 'Stream from the Heavens' (1993)". Terrorizer. 144. London: 54.
  • Minton, James; Kelly, Kim; Selby, Jenn (2009). "Filth Parade". Terrorizer. 188. London: 56.
  • Tracey, Ciarán (2006). "Doom/Death: United In Grief". Terrorizer. 142. London: 54–55.
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