I’d like to introduce you to a favorite music genre of mine: doom metal. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry—it’s not the sort of music that’s likely to show up on the Billboard Top 100 any time soon. You have to hunt for it, though not too far—there’s a lot to be found. The incredibly dedicated website doom-metal.com has nearly 2,000 bands listed that classify as doom metal of some kind.

Doom metal itself has its roots in the late seventies/early eighties, and is defined by Wikipedia as:

… an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much “thicker” or “heavier” sound than other metal genres.

Doom metal can be split into a variety of sub-genres (sub-sub-genres?), including (again according to doom-metal.com) atmospheric doom, death doom, epic doom, funeral doom, sludge doom and stoner doom. Many of these have overlapping elements, and I wouldn’t blame the uninitiated for failing to understand how funeral doom can have death metal elements, yet not be classified as ‘death doom’. In fact, to the untrained ear most doom metal would likely sound similar: heavy guitars, thumping bass, and comparatively slow tempos.

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