My Thirteen Favorite Doom songs

* Whore - 13
Tag:sludge doom

Unapologetic, dirty female death growls.

13 Norge - Thorr's Hammer
Tag: death-doom metal

Atmospheric, gloomy and romantic. I have yet to find another doom song where the female clean vocals are more evil and spooky than the death growls (also female) in the foreground.

12 Sea Hag - Burning Witch
Tag: funeral doom

Hag-like death growls chanting of despair in a definitive funeral ocean.

11 Solitary Fallen Angel - Left Hand Solution
Tag:doom metal
He rides a pitch-black unicorn
Wishing he was never born

Melancholic dirge in two voices, a clean female voice against a delicate female chant.

10 Penta Imperium (Doom Empire Version), Penta Imperium (Sick Funeral Version) - Aura HiemiS
Tag: doom metal
Covered by: Dadelos Anrete Anu Ed Larenuf
Don´t you leave me
Don´t you leave me alone,
I can give you
All what you are seeking


A cry of despair in two versions, one just before and other after the grave, the Doom Empire version features clean, passionate male vocals while the Sick Funeral version features a gloomy death growl.



9 The Hour Of Death - Reverend Bizarre
Tag:doom metal
My God have mercy upon me in this hour of death I pray for thee to take my life instead of the one I so dearly love

A heavy and oppressing riff that could easily compete with entry number one of this list. A long landscape that borders in Funeral Doom were not for the clean and powerful male voice.


8 Rain and Twilight Innocence - Novembers Doom
Tag:death-doom metal
The Only way to cleanse my soul is drown my dirt with rain

Your dreams inspire me to be the best man I can be

Rain is a heavy metal storm, the death growl never rests, a monster opening for The Novella Reservoir, a dense death-doom atmosphere were not for a small calm paradise in the middle of the song, that foreshadows the inclusion of Twilight Innocence, a gentle ballad amidst the brutality of the rest of the album. This is a song that I would play for the woman I marry, definitively.


7 Christian Woman - Type O Negative
Tag:gothic-doom metal
Covered by: Graveworm
For her lust she'll burn in hell, her soul done medium well

In my opinion, the true spirit of doom lies in complex musical landscapes, both frantic and laconic. In this song the struggle of spirituality and carnaLity paint an internal monologue told in clean, almost sarcastic vocals and a male chorus.



6 Dying Inside - Saint Vitus
Tag:stoner doom
I can't control my addiction
I've tried time and time again
I'm losing all my friends and lovers
Alcohol knows it's gonna win


The original Doom has also addiction at its core, not only ontological depression, but the cry of an unromantic addict; the alcoholic.
The male vocals are not grandiose, but dead honest and self-deprecating.


5 Your River - My Dying Bride
Tag:doom metal
It's sad that, in our blindness, we gather thorns for flowers.
Your river holds a feast of danger.
The suffering you have had to bear.

Though My Dying Bride continued down the way of Gothic Metal, Turn Loose the Swans is a Doom Metal opus, a complex introduction leading to an explosive confession. The path that the clean male vocals follow are that of depression.


4 The Cry of Silence - Draconian
Tag:gothic doom metal
I have a thousand reasons to die and many million tears to cry

Romantic and gloomy, a conversation between a clean male voice, a female vocal and a death growl, the length and the complexity create a landscape of infinite sadness.

3 Seeds of the Desolate - Solitude Aeturnus
Mirror of Sorrow - Solitude Aeturnus
Tag:doom metal
Covered by:Worship
A beautiful mirror of radiant splendor
As ominous as the autumn moon
It brought upon me endless wonder
Yet spoke of some unknown doom

A beautiful Doom ballad, melancholy abound, an almost lovecraftian lament. Clean and passionate male vocals bring frenzy to the quiet waters.


2 Solitude - Candlemass
Covered By: Swallow the Sun, Anorexia Nervosa, Desire, Blodsrit
Tag:doom metal
I'm sitting here alone in darkness waiting to be free lonely and forlorn I am crying I long for my time to go death is just life Please let me die in solitude

The definitive Doom metal hymn, here every element pertaining to Doom is properly crafted, every band covering it has added a layer of dimension to the original.

1 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Covered by:Amber Asylum, Type O Negative, Wraith of the Ropes, Throne of Ahaz, Iced Earth, Sabbra Cadabra, Ad Hominem,

Here is where it all started, the riff that defines heavy metal, the riff that, if Tommi Iommi had not hurt his fingers and downtuned his guitar would have created a parallel, metalless universe. The original gloom and passion brought by an impossibly young Ozzy. The parameter from which every pother band is and will be measured.

Hand of Doom - Black Sabbath
Covered by:Isis, Orange Goblin, Slayer, Eyehategod, HIM, Cephalic Carnage
Tag: proto-doom

Would the genre be called Sabbath Metal were not for this song?