doom metal

Record #697: Mountaineer – Bloodletting (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’re already well aware that I have a very soft spot for a particular kind of heavy, glacial, melodic sludge metal (see: Isis, Cult of Luna, Mouth of the Architect, Spotlights, etc).

My friend Alex knows this, and so when he heard Bloodletting, the latest full length from California post metal outfit Mountaineer, his first reaction was to send me the link.

A few songs in, my first reaction  was to buy the record.  Said record has a label on it that says, “For Fans Of: Cult of Luna, Alcest, Torche, and Baroness.” That’s a pretty bold FFO if you can’t back it up. Luckily, Bloodletting proves it in spades.

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Record #689: Elder – Omens (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Three years ago, I fell in love with Elder’s Reflections of a Floating World, an interplanetary blend of doom metal, psychedelic rock, Krautrock, and prog.

Their fifth record Omens takes Reflections’ more meandering elements and lets them really breathe. Synths and electric pianos are just as prominent as crushing guitars, creating an album that feels more Rush than Black Sabbath.

And the results are stunning.

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Record #640: Black Sabbath – Vol. 4 (1972)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For years, I’ve mistakenly thought of Black Sabbath as a one-trick pony—probably on account of the monotony of the horde of copycats citing their catalogue as their bible.

But after digging deeper into their discography, I can see now that the source material is much more diverse than I could have imagined. Vol. 4 is especially varied, and not just in comparison to their other records, but within its own tracklist.

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Record #601: Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality (1971)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For my great love of metal bands that are often described as “Black Sabbath worship” (see: Pallbearer, Elder, Baroness, Isis), I’ve never dug too deep into Black Sabbath themselves beyond some superficial listens to Paranoid.

But on a recent trip to the record store, I decided to change that. Trying to decide between this record and Vol. 4, I pulled up an article that called this record the “ultra-heavy” foundation of doom, sludge, and stoner metal.

I just wasn’t expecting so much overt Christianity.

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Record #517: Chelsea Wolfe – Hiss Spun (2017)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If I were to ask you to imagine a female singer-songwriter, there’s a good chance your mind would go to a subdued, pensive artist, a la Joan Baez or Julien Baker.

But lately, there’s been a crop of women whose particular brand of introspection is better accompanied by rattling, detuned guitars and a pummeling rhythm section than an acoustic guitar. Women like Kristina Esfandiari of King Woman and Chelsea Wolfe.

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Top Ten Metal Albums For People Who Think They Don’t Like Metal

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Heavy metal is a rich genre, but to the casual listener, it often just sounds like a bunch of noise. The blistering riffs, machine-gun drums, and screaming vocals can send many people running as far away as they can. And for a long while, that included me.

But, through a fortuitous string of events, I discovered that I love metal, with all of its raw power and crushing beauty.

But there are many metal records that offer all of the same heaviness with a healthy dose of conventional beauty. If you’ve been curious about metal, here are ten albums that offer all the power of heavy metal without all the chaos. Continue reading →

Record #48: Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1970)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Black Sabbath is often cited as one of the founders of the popular rock subgenre “metal,” but you’d never guess if you compared it to the drop-D tuned, breakdown plagued, double-kick-drum fury of today’s metal.
This is too melodic, lacking the palm muted chunks of contemporary metal, instead favoring dark (for the time) lyrics put over heavily distorted (again, for the time) blues rock.
But don’t take that as a criticism of the music, only of modern semantics.
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