Traditional Doom Metal

Traditional doom metal is the original form of doom, descending directly from Black Sabbath’s slow, heavy, ominous riffing. Emerging in the early 1980s, US bands like Saint Vitus, Pentagram, and Trouble kept the tempos slow and the riffs thick, while Sweden’s Candlemass added an epic, operatic grandeur on their landmark Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. Vocals are usually clean and mournful, and the mood is one of gloom, foreboding, and gothic weight. It is metal’s oldest and most Sabbath-faithful strain of darkness.