Victims of Creation - Symmetry of Our Plagued Existence (2013)

   Victims of Creation formed as a death/doom/funeral doom band, but their debut and so far one and only album was much more than that. It's like a summarizing record of the doom metal style from their own perspective.
   Even though on "Symmetry of Our Plagued Existence" death /doom and funeral doom elements are dominant by the suspected main influence of Esoteric, epic doom themes and clear singing are taking their parts too, which are strongly reminding to Candlemass. If the listener pays attention, the solo in the last song is like a pretty evident reference to Tony Iommi's style, and even it's tone is quite hard rock-like. Therefore it's not an exaggeration to say that the band intended to show the widest diversity as possible for a death/doom band, and they pretty much succeeded. The songs are also well composed, their extended lengths were used up well, and not ending up in monotony. The fact that all the influences they built from are strongly related, made the band's job easier, they just had to follow a specific guideline and decide in which order they preferred to go heavier or take a softer turn. At the other hand, the album is easier to go into than most funeral doom records are, but the dynamics based on the contrast of '80s and '90s styles works quite well. By their wider perspective than usual the album could be enjoyable for both the fans of the original, less audience friendly aspect of death/doom and the fans of the romance based melancholic direction. 

Funeralium - Deceived Idealism (2013)

   Funeralium debuted with their self-titled album in 2007, and since it seemed like a side project of two members of Ataraxie (Frédéric Patte-Brasseur - guitars, and Jonathan Théry - guitars, vocals), sot surprisingly the music showed plenty of similarities with Ataraxie. And for the complete view, Vincent Buisson (bass) from Mourning Dawn is also mentonable. On the side of the references to both mentioned bands, the self-titled album was like a slower, more desperate version of Ataraxie, though Ataraxie was already quite strong in those features. But a more individual perspective led to further personalized depths, and a more broken tone. It's important to mention that both bands have been strongly influenced by Bethlehem, and this could be sensed in Funeralium's music with similar intensity like in Mourning Dawn. 

   Despite the similarities, a few distinguishing characteristics made Funeralium independent enough, and on their second album, "Deceived Idealism" the band focused more on these. The sound turned heavier, the music more diverse, the level of desperation, and the depressing features even stronger. This diversity is comparable to how both Ataraxie and Mourning Dawn are trying to take out the maximum from each theme and it's variations, and therefore even in case of extended song lengths, monotonous impression is possible to avoid. And more importantly: even though this genre and format isn't easy to go into, the slowly developing and ongoing themes are able to lead the listener with ease. From heavy riffs to gentle melodies, from anxious depths to intense outbreaks. It's a formula that drastically decreases the possibility of failures, but it needs pretty skilled musicians, and of course loads of melancholy and depression. Atmosphere has secondary role, not leading through the whole album, but often represented by blackened themes and sound and sometimes relying on the contrast of noisy heaviness and gentle melodies. It's like a direct connection between black/doom, death/doom and funeral doom, and in fact, the borders between these subgenres getting blurred and seem irrelevant in some way. The production and the sound are all-round high quality. Similar to both Ataraxie and Mourning dawn, Funeralium offers way higher complexity than what should be expected, and this makes "Decieved Idealism" a funeral doom masterpiece. 

Hanged Ghost - The Attraction of Oblivion (2013)

   Hanged Ghost debuted in 2011 by "Knowledge of the Occult", a rehearsal quality record. Their music showed kinda mixed influences, that's not the easiest thing to figure out for two reasons. 

   First of all because of their style pick, which is basically funeral doom. And the funeral doom they play is definitely not easy to go into. Extended themes during even more extended song lengths, monotonous, endless suffering in its most extreme form. At the other hand the poor quality is also not helping. The noisy heaviness based riffs doesn't prevail as they used to in funeral doom, and the sound is more relatable to black metal. Therefore by listening to the debut, it's difficult to decide if the sound was intentionally like that, or it just came from the rehearsal quality. Things are more clear on "The Attraction of Oblivion", since the sound was better, but kept the same tendency. Funeral doom's essential slow, down-pulling themes not necessarily making any specific distinguishing line between black and death metal features, especially if the selected sound is strongly atmospheric and echoing. So both could function next to each other unnoticed. On the side of the sound, occasionally some quite old school black metal themes showing up too, of course in slower version. To the more complete black metal influenced impression  the vocals are assisting too, when deep growling switches to higher toned cawing. And it happens quite frequently, therefore the blackened touch became one of the Hanged Ghost's main features. These characteristics working pretty well together to highlight desperate hopelessness, and able to easily bring up the most negative feelings from the listener. The album might be pretty enjoyable for the fans of funeral doom!

Ataraxie - Project X (2011)

   "Project X" by Ataraxie is everything but a usual compilation. Though it fits to the main concept, cause it includes their first demo, some live songs, and a few other surprises, they didn't just re-released "The Other Path", but recorded and wrote the songs again according to their present perspective.
   This resulted longer songs than before with more themes and of course great sound quality. It's definitely not surprising from a band who pays so much attention on the details and keeps producing death/doom in excellent quality since their debut. Ataraxie's productiveness is quite impressive, and in longer duration it seems even more evident (since it's a 2,5 hours long double album). There's no boring or overly repetitive moments to find during that time, thanks to the great song compositions and the themes diversity. Unlike about most other bands in the genre, it might be difficult to tell about Ataraxy that because they play death/funeral doom, slowly agonizing and repetitive themes are the most memorable features in their music, though it definitely gives the basic tone. The reason why is that is kind of complex, and it's literraly meant, because on the side of great leads, catchy melodies, atmospheric tone, they also operated with overwhelmingly obscure heaviness and very intense blackened themes. By a Bethlehem cover they also told one of their probably inspiring sources that builds on the contrast of hopeless depression and outbreaking anger/suffer; a contrast they frequently like to apply. This common influence, the endeavor for excellent quality both in sound and music, and their impressive productiveness shows some analogy with Mourning Dawn. The only reason why "Project X" might be not so easy to go into for some, is it's extended lenght. But since it's filled with great themes and musical solutions, it's definitely able to keep the listeners attention, and requiers plenty of occasions to listen over and over again to get all of it's hidden dark gems revealed. 

Who Dies in Siberian Slush - Bitterness of the Years That Are Lost (2010)

   Death/doom metal looks back to a kind of long past, and even though it was never in the focus of the metal scene, similar to other styles, nearly all possibilites have been depleted in it's old times. Still, as the style was kind of reanimated by the formation of numerous new bands who didn't disappear after one or two album releases, and thanks to them new aspects of death/doom are getting introduduced.
   Who Dies in Siberian Slush debuted with a stunning album, that sympathized with both of the melancholic, emotional direction, and the heavy-noisy, endlessly extended version of death/doom. In similar cases usually the first is the more influental, but this mix is still way heavier than what is usual from the romantic death/doom bands of the middle and late '90s. In classic death/doom there is no chance to hear keyboards, since the instrument supports a more emotional and atmospheric approach, but in this case, with funeral doom-like background, it's not able to go too far with that. Heavily depressing and painful impression gets carried through the album, and the soft melodies are completing the main view, otherwise it would be more down pulling. Also the use of keyboards in doom and gothic metal is usually one sided, but Who Dies in Siberian Slush creatively introduced other ways how it could fit to a heavy sounded album. The obscure image that gets painted by the slow, extended themes and the deep growling vocals is also not turning monotonous, because the themes aren't too repetitive, and always somehow changing before that point could be reached. There is an expected endeavor to keep a certain balance in the music, to not go too deep onto a desperate level, to not sound too noisy and ravaged, and also to avoid the romantic, gothic style. "Bitterness of The Years that Are Lost" might be enjoyable for the fans of  death/doom in general.

Origin of Darkness - The Living Darkness (2010)

   Such as Catacombs, Origin of Darkness was also a short lived one man band of Mr Xathagorra Mlandroth alias John del Russi, who's known about playing on all instruments in all of his projects.
  The style of these projects are mostly mixing funeral and death/doom, but earlier he played raw black metal too. There are plenty of things in common such as the concept of creating the darkest possible tone, and the returning Lovecraft reference. Still, thanks to Mr Russi's productiveness, they doesn't sound like the same, and it's easy to find the differences. Compared to Catacombs, Origin of Darkness was more intense and the themes had main role instead of the strong atmosphere, that's almost completely gone. In the songs he focused on a simple, but catchy leading melody, that's repetitively returning and strictly holding the songs together. Higher toned ominous themes are completing the heavy riffs with also repetitive assistance. These are also the only atmospheric elements left, and to pair them with the obscure, rumbling main themes was an excellent solution. The sound turned closer to death metal, therefore the main effect is more unfriendly. The sound and the song structures together are strongly reminding to the style of Finnish death metal, but this approach of death/doom and funeral doom is also not far from Esoteric. If Catacombs was like levitating endlessly in some amorphous obscure terror, than Origin of Darkness is like a slow but certain devastating breakout from that idle state. 

Abstract Spirit - Tragedy and Weeds (2009)

   By "Liquid Dimension Change" Abstract Spirit created an album that leads through the borders of funeral doom, and shows such diversity, that's unusual to the style. Their returning record "Tragedy and Weeds" extended this tendency even further by merging into the depths of the musical wealthiness that came by their mixed influences.

   Their experimenting with themes unlocked catchier melodies and also involved well known ones like the funeral march, and interestingly a whole song was built upon it (Funeral Waltz). The atmosphere that was achieved on the previous album both by effects and keyboards, got assistance by brass instruments, most possibly by tubas, that gave the impression if a whole orchestra would cooperate with the band. It turned out that tubas surprisingly well fitting into funeral doom and with the keyboards together their influence on the music is quite genuine. The metal and classical elements are so well composed and unified, that it should be given to most symphonic metal bands as homework to listen to, like "see folks, this is how it should be done". The sound seemingly doesn't need to turn softer or less noisy to let the classical features to prevail. It's interesting cause most bands have to change their sound completely even if they want to go progressive or more technical than usual, not to mention the involvement of other, non-metal elements. But here's the best example how its could be done without, and on pro level, by classical features. The vocals occasionally also switching from deep growling to a higher, more cawing-like tone, mostly in backing vocals style. "Tragedy and Weeds" is the same time extremely heavy, tragic, down-pulling and endlessly exciting to listen to. The themes, the atmosphere, the sound and the deep growling vocals are all overwhelming one by one too, but together they created something that could be described only as musical excellence. Another masterpiece released to the world by Abstract Spirit.

Abstract Spirit - Liquid Dimensions Change (2008)

   Abstract Spirit debuted with as a funeral doom band with an album that was way more intense than what could be expected from funeral doom bands. Intensity in this case isn't based on the tempo, but on a much wider musical spectrum than what's usual.

   This happened probably partly due to their timing, because after it's long forgotten state, death/doom was rediscovered by several bands in the main scene from the late '00s. And lately formed funeral doom projects involved more death/doom influences than their predecessors. This also had the advantage of wider possibilities that could better stimulate productiveness than death/doom or funeral doom separately could (it's enough to think about Evoken or Ataraxie). But Abstract Spirit went even deeper, their music included both aspects of death/doom, the classic, heavy and less audience friendly form and also the strongly atmospheric, melodic romantic aspect version that became popular from the mid '90s. However, the basic concept of funeral doom didn't change, here's no romance based self pity to find, only death, grief and tormenting depression. These mixed influences created some quite exciting duality. At one hand there's an aesthetic approach by the thick atmosphere both by effects and keyboards, but meanwhile the heaviness of the themes wasn't holding back, and they're also assisted by very deep growling vocal style. "Liquid Dimension Change" sounds like a missing link between the mentioned directions, because even though similar transitions have been heard in the '90s too, but none of them were so maximalist in expressing all aspects at their best. The result is something extraordinarily heavy, that's the same time catchy by of the melodies and the atmosphere, and down pulling by the consuming and merciless noisy coldness of the funeral doom themes. Even if they're slowly evolving, the eventfulness of the music having advantageous influence on the extended song lengths, and the songs hardly could be marked as boring, no matter how long they are. "Liquid Domansions Change" was a greatly composed debut, a masterpiece came from nothing, to fill the empty void with it's charmingly dark essence. 

Esoteric - The Manical Vale (2008)

   A lot have happened since the formation of Esoteric, and that's also literally meant, since the band showed impressive productiveness during their journey. They've tried various ways to combine strong atmosphere with heavy sound, and on their 5th full-lenght album "The Manical Vale" they somehow drifted back to their basics.

   From the perspective of death/doom and heavy sound, it became their roughest record (after the "Esoteric Emotions" demo of course), and could count as the most balanced one if it's about the combination of harshness and melancholy. They've always been known about extended song and album lenghts, and "The Manical Vale" also gives plenty of time to merge into the depths by it's 2x50 minutes lenght. Strong atmosphere gives the basic tone of the album, mostly assisted by simple, but catchy melodies, of course in quite slow ongoing process. Even if it's about funeral doom, to fill such a long time frame with themes in a diverse way (according to the style) to not turn too repetitive and boring, takes a lot of effort. Interestingly the melodies they've operated with often referring to quite old sources ('70s, '80s hard rock and doom metal) that are not really common to find at related bands. As the noisy, heavy riffs assisted by deep growling vocal style frequently switching them, they creating great contrast, but thanks to the atmosphere that unifies the whole album, they completing each other.  Even though "The Manical Vale" might sound rough, and having intense downpulling effect, it's still more like melancholic than depressing. The switches doesn't let the listener to fall to deep, or to levitate too far. Reaching balance in a style like this is evident singn how to master a genre and how to compose a masterpiece. 

Catacombs - In the Depths of R'lyeh (2006)

   Compared to the classics of funeral doom, the American direction of the style includes more death/doom influences, and therefore heaviness became it's important feature. This wasn't different in the case of Catacombs either, a one man project that gave a new dark shade to the style.
   But there are other differences too. While the gloom of nature, passing away and some cosmic anxiety were in the main focus at the creators of the genre, horror often replaced them in the followings. The one and only album of Catacombs was inspired by the novels of Lovecraft. Normally intense music fits more to topics like horror and gore, but this is a far different aspect. The slumbering terror gets introduced, the inevitable doom that one day will be released to the world to fulfill it's destiny. The seems like eternally idle status of the greatest threat is well illustrated by the extended song lenghts and minimal musical activities. There is something sinister in the simple soft melodies that are following the slow, heavily rolling darkness, that will consume everything one day. Excellent sound quality helps the listener to merge into the depths of R'lyeh to see what the future of this fictional world holds.

Night Must Fall - Night Must Fall / Funeral of Mankind (2005)

   Influenced by Thergothon, the most important creators of funeral doom, Night Must Fall showed another example of Finnish happiness.
   Their self-titled demo and debut EP was relesead together in the form of a compilation, so it includes total 3 songs that are lasting together almost an hour long. That means decent song lenghts, so the album offers itself as an excellent background music for the lovers of heavily depressed moods to merge into self-tormenting agony. Since the classics of the genre remained in quite bad/noisy quality, the clear sound of Night Must Fall (even their demo had incomparably better sound quality) could show wider perspectives. The band strictly followed the style features that Thergothon operated with a decade earlier. The deep growling vocal has stronger effect, but because of it's rare appearence and the endlessly long depressive harmonies, it's role isn't bigger. The EP song is more like a rehearsal improvisation, that means they've focused more on the effect of noises than melodies, and they combined their themes diverse, but according to it's over 22 minutes lenght of course. This piece of musical uncreation might be interesting for the fans of funeral doom.

Atarxie - Slow Transcending Agony (2005)

   Even though funeral doom and death/doom metal didn't become potencial audience favorites, both styles made a large step compared to the '90s. The poor rehearsal sound of funeral doom classics passed as the numbers of similar bands increased such as the quality of their music.
   Ataraxie was a perfect example to illustrate the progress. Their debut "Slow Transcending Agony" was such an all-round high quality record, that wasn't common to find previously. Slow, repetitive melodies gave the basic down-pulling atmosphere of their songs that are sounding like chapters of pure endless agony. The clear and excellent sound quality seemed more effective on this field than noise created atmosphere. It's a great mix of death and doom metal, as it's introducing perfectly the hopelessness of long term suffer, that seems like will never end. The heaviness came by the noisy themes and the butally deep growling that ends up often in agonizing screams. The song lengths and their monotonely bouncing slowness reached the level of funeral doom, but sometimes turns to intense hammering. The contrast they've created by these rare but repeating speed changes left the dominating role to dark melancholy, so there is definitely enough time for the listener to face it's inner suffer before some refreshing aggression arrives. It's a strongly recommended album for the fans of depressing heaviness. 

Rigor Sardonicous - Apocalypsis Damnare (2005)

    "Apocalypsis Damnare" was the first full-lenght album of Rigor Sardonicous, re-released in 2005 as their third one. They sound like a mainly Thergothon influenced funeral doom band that prefers death/doom themes, but Rigor Sardonicous exists since the late '80s, when even the term "funeral doom" didn't exist yet. So probably old school death metal bands were their first influences.
  In this case something had to change suddenly when bands like Thergothon and Skepticism showed up. The same endlessly extended and slow themes could be heard on "Apocalypsis Damnare", but in a noisier, heavier version and in better quality. Even though they still didn't go further with the sound quality than the level of a rehearsal record, still more could be heard out from their music than from the classics of the genre. The noise creates a monotonous down pulling atmosphere and a very deep, probably artificially distorted vocal growls about the less bright side of life... in fact mostly about it's end. To compense their short staffed lineup, they used programmed beats, but like in most cases when people doing that who have low percusion experience, the result often sounds like if the carpet would be pulled out under someone who falls right back onto a pile of dish. That might be hard to imagine in this style, but at the occasional death/doom speed ups it could be sensed. Except these small aesthetical issues the album could be entertaining for the fans of heavily demoralizing sound.

Evoken - Embrace the Emptiness (1998)

   Funeral doom had a quite inspirational effect for those who were looking for new kind of impulses in musical extremeness. Evoken referred to Thergothon as their main inspiration, the very first pioneer of the style, and soon they became the most popular funeral doom band.
   Compared to the the earliest bands in this style, Evoken focused on excellent sound quality since the beginning, to reach maximum effectiveness to the strong atmosphere they are operating with. While in Thergothon distorted noises and keyboards with '80s touch were resposible fot the atmosphere, the clear sound gave wider possibilites. Evoken liked to involve lots of melodies too, so their death/doom influences are referring to the audience friendlier style of the subgenre. The returning melodies are not letting their music to slip into the depths of endless monotonize features, so even though the song leghts are decently extended, they don't become boring. Evoken always trying all possibilities how to keep their long mourning ballads intense enough. Since the melodies and the atmosphere having main role, the deep growling vocals are responsible for the heaviness.

Skepticism - Stormcrowfleet (1995)

   On the side of Thergothon, Skepticism could be found responsible for the birth of funeral doom metal. Unlike Thergothon, Skepticism didn't end up as a short living project. They not only lay down the basics of the genre, but it was also introduced by them for the wider audience.
   If death/doom could be named as the main influental source of this style, plenty of it's features got left behind, such as the noisy sound, the overwhelming heavy themes and in this case the horror based lyrics too. The speed turned so low as it's possible, and the heaviness was represented by the atmosphere. So similar to depressive black metal, the funeral doom they played had the complete rule of atmosphere, but instead of painful sizzling melodies, keyboards are the main down-pulling tools. It's emotionally less effective, sounds more like some depressive meditation about sorrow based on eternity, the circulation of nature and the inevitable event of passing away that comes with it. The keyboard themes mostly reminding to church organs on funeral masses. The guitars are sounding so flat, that they were completely absorbed by the atmosphere. The deep growling vocals had the same destiny, and by the loss of most extreme features, the listener could wonder if is it still metal or more like some ambient-like background music for negative relaxation. However the extended song lenghts, the never ending grief and the miserable speed didn't set the genre to the favorites of the mainstream audience. "Stormcrowfleet" is one of the most important funeral doom classics.

Thergothon - Stream from the Heavens (1994)

   Some people in Finland may thought that death/doom wasn't enough depressive and demoralizing, so they experimented with something more effective. They were Thergothon, the pioneers of funeral doom metal.
   If we think about Winter or Disembowelment, similar ambitions were not new, but Thergothon was mainly responsible for the birth of this subgenre. For them to slow down so much didn't serve the needed contrast for the more intense themes that came after, it was the center of their concept. They created a unified composition that lately was used as a sample to define this style and counted as an inspirational material. The point of departure was death/doom of course, but by stepping back more into the direction of doom metal. With a strong atmosphere they turned the slowly rolling noisy mass into a whole, and also gave the main melancholic and spiritual impression. The keyboards had strong '80s feeling that always sounds weird on '90s albums and don't really fit to the heavy, noisy themes, but they were used to create some balance. On the side of the tragic oblivion and nature-based lyrics, the influences of horror kept their important role. Not the emotions or the gore, but the heavy letargy is in focus. That was a possible exaggerated way through death doom, and described the basics of funeral doom.

Esoteric - Esoteric Emotions - The Death of Ignorance (1993)

   The debut demo of Esoteric Emotions (later simply Esoteric) was something extraordinary in the early '90s metal scene. They experimented with something different from the main trends, and even their basic concept wasn't usual that time.
   Even though death/doom metal was everything but popular in the age of extreme speed and intensity, they went even further and experimented with strong atmosphere, noise, even more extended song lenght and way slower speed. The band counts as one of the earliest heralds of funeral doom. The lyrical concept was also more similar to funeral doom, but the record kept it's death/doom-like heaviness and death metal influenced aggressive touch. Later these features were forced back and experimentings with atmosphere and noises had the main focus, so "The Death of Ignorance" is probably their heaviest record. That may sound weird since it was only a demo, but there are other interesting features too why it could be nominated as a record-holder, like for the imaginary nomination of the longest demo record ever with it's over 1 hour lenght. But it's good sound quality is also everything but usual according to the early '90s and the style they were into. In general it's not so easy to get into this music because of it's heaviness, extended lenght and experimenting ambitions, but by all of these the band showed it's productiveness that also could count as an extremity compared to the main scene. A less known, but exciting classic that is definitely worth to try for the lovers of the depths of heavy melancholic sound.