Funeral doom

Funeral doom is a subgenre of death-doom with heavy influence from funeral dirge music. Low-tuned guitars, death growls, instruments that emulate pipe organ sounds and ponderous pace are typical traits of this style.

History

An offshoot of death-doom, the genre was mostly inspired by the work of Autopsy, Winter, Cathedral and early Paradise Lost. Funeral doom truly came into being in the mid-1990s. The genre was birthed out of Finland; Thergothon and Skepticism are commonly cited as the earliest two bands in the style, as well as Unholy. Outside Scandinavia, the lines between death-doom and funeral doom pioneers were less clear cut. diSEMBOWELMENT, from Australia, Birmingham-based Esoteric, and American act Evoken are examples.
With the turn of the millennium came releases of newer bands, such as Shape of Despair, Mournful Congregation, the "Nautik Doom" group Ahab and one-man-projects Nortt and Doom:VS. Funeral doom scenes cropped up over the world, such as the one in Russia. The Solitude Productions label, for example, became a major force in shaping its future. Like no metal subgenre before it, the internet boom greatly helped funeral doom reach new fans. By the 2010s, funeral doom reached into metal's mainstream.
Another sign of funeral doom's increasing status was Peaceville's move to buy the rights of Avantgarde Music's back catalogue. Responsible for launching the careers of Autopsy, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema, Peaceville was the major player in shaping what became known as death-doom. This now meant that Peaceville had a significant stake in funeral doom's history: it owned all of Thergothon's and Unholy's discography, along with two Evoken albums.
Although it has a substantial following, funeral doom has also its share of criticism. Chronicles of Chaos co-editor Pedro Azevedo argued that, to the average listener, funeral doom might sound "boring and repetitive". Ciarán Tracey, in an article for Terrorizer, acknowledged that the increasing popularity of funeral doom also meant that it now had its "share of hangers-on and can act as a repository for pseudo-literary teen poetry and artless abstraction, so a certain critical scrutiny has become necessary."

Characteristics

Instrumentation and vocals

Coc's Azevedo described funeral doom's core sound as a mix of "downtuned guitars, ponderous drumming, church organs and cavernous death vox" done at an "extremely slow" pace. Though it kept death metal's low-tuning and death growls, funeral doom eschewed most of its complex song structures and rapid tempo changes in a favor of a minimalist approach and slower tempos. Depending on the band, it keeps some genre-specific characteristics of death-doom, such as violins and female vocals. Some background elements - church bells, keyboards or synthesizers - are many a time part of funeral doom's overall sound, adding a "dreamlike" quality to what is often described as a heavy and burdensome atmosphere. Skepticism keyboardist Eero Pöyry said that "I position myself as a church organ player in a metal band". Furthermore, Pöyry explained that, at the time,

Lyrics

Thematically, funeral doom avoided the "Peaceville Three"'s gothic sensibilities in favor of a more nihilistic world view, evoking a sense of emptiness and despair. Thanatology topics such as grief, loss and suicide are central to the style. Apart from that, thematic content varies widely. Thergothon's lyrics were inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Ahab notoriously wrote whole concept albums based on Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick. In turn, Esoteric experimented with a variety of psychotropic substances - LSD, magic mushrooms and cannabis - to explore the obscure recesses of the unconscious mind. Their dark take on psychedelia inspires music and words that resemble a soundtrack to a "bad trip".

Etymology

Funeral doom's name has two distinct genealogies. One source claimed it was a namesake of Norway's death-doom outfit Funeral. It might have come, too, from Skepticism's pipe organ-like keyboard timbre, which reminded listeners of funeral music.