Funeral Doom for the living
 

Candlelight. Gravesoil. Fog. Sorrow.

Funeral Doom is a ponderous and mighty genre, brimming with despair and as cold as a sepulcher. It's also among my favorite genres of music. Feel free to post recommendations and quick reviews/descriptions.

Ahab - The Call of the Wretched Sea

Widely regarded as one of the best albums to come out of the frozen depths of funeral doom, The Call of the Wretched Sea is a brine-soaked amalgam of thunderous drumming, undulating guitars, and vocals that summon the doomed captain's nemesis, Moby Dick. The Pequod's ****ed and so is your puny, mortal brain.

Evoken - Quietus

If I lived in New Jersey, I'd be as depressed as the guys in Evoken seem to be. There's more of a feeling of regret in Evoken's 2nd full length than you hear in most funeral doom. Legends like Skepticism and Therogothen bring to mind loss; Evoken also suffers from loss, but it's their own damn fault. Sublime melancholy accentuated by tasteful keys and a pernicious, hollow sound.

Mournful Congregation - The Monad of Creation

If Evoken evokes (sorry) regret, then Mournful Congregation infuses the listener with a sense of hope. Hope that the end, which is still absolutely coming, won't be as bad as you think. Just kidding, you're stuck in the Outback, miles from a kind soul, lost, alone, and gathering a circling pack of predators. The Aussies in Mournful Congregation wrote one of the all-time greats in The Monad of Creation, and a smarter record you'll be hard-pressed to find.



The extremity and specificity of Funeral Doom have made the genre self-selecting, ensuring that only dedicated musicians spend time among the 'dead'. I have a couple dozen other greats (and a few obscure groups) to share if anyone is interested. Love me some 40 bpm tunes.

Funeris are one of my favourite bands in a subgenre I've barely explored.

Can't say I listen to much funeral doom, but Skepticism are pretty rad. I think I probably need more drugs and mood disorders to get into it. And I seem to remember Evoken bringing the tempo up just enough to also qualify as death doom, making them cool as well. Not really funeral doom, but diSEMBOWELMENT toe the line and are sick.

I think it's been awhile since listening to Thergothon (you know, the fathers of funeral doom forever), and I definitely need to reacquaint myself either way, but I remember having kinda mixed feelings. Definitely unique as well as cosmically oppressive atmosphere but I felt like it wasn't "big" enough, like too thin and flangey on the guitars, I also kinda remember thinking the growls sounded like ****.



But as long as the album's right there why not listen again? I know I liked it a lot aside from those complaints.

Mournful Congregation gotta be one of my favs though, among the top known funeral icons. Esoteric are pretty essential too

Ahab are the **** brohab

Another pillar of the genre, Finland's Tyranny. Tides of Awakening was one of the first funeral doom albums I'd ever heard. Oppressive, invasive, and unsettling. Everything a good dirge should be:


Glad to see some responses here! Thergothon aren't my favorite, but certainly an important group.

Argentina just strikes me as an odd place for depressive/contemplative music as I imagine everyone there is beautiful and lives on the beach, but Fungoid Stream resists such (positive) stereotyping. Filled with cosmic angst, Celaenus Fragments flirts with death via entropy more than any suicidal urge. Along with containing some of the strangest drumming I've heard, period, much less in something as generally straightforward as funeral doom, Celaenus Fragments utilizes more of a breathy, raspy low grunt than a booming growl to convey existential despair. And it works. Oppressively.

Definitely not a straightforward band. From what I've picked up of his taste, I think these guys will strongly appeal to Mondo Bungle.

I'm not super into that album but it sounds better than you'd expect for being entirely digital

this album is too rich in warm psychedelia for me to call FDM 100%, but it's some often very slow death/doom that likes to be sunny as well as mournful
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