What are your thoughts on Death/Doom Metal?

So here's a question that's been bugging me: is "death/doom metal" really a legitimate subgenre, or is it just normie death metal played really slow? I get the atmosphere is sometimes different, but mostly it feels like we're just splitting hairs like with the infinity of "microgenres" like Gorenoise, Cybergrind, Retro Thrash, Prog Death, etc. Curious what you all think. Does it stand on its own, or is it just marketing?

On a side note, what are some of the good death/doom metal bands you recommend? In case you do believe in it as a legitimate subgenre I mean.

Just slow death metal bruv. Nothing special here. If gothenburg mallcore bands can get away with calling their music 'melodic death metal' all other genres are automatically sus.

Death/doom is legit. The point isn't just "slowing down death metal riffs." It's about how atmosphere and pacing create this suffocating, almost funereal vibe. Listen to Onward to Golgotha. Incantation basically showed everyone how crawling tempos and cavernous production could sound like the earth itself swallowing you. That's not just "death metal slower," that's an entirely different genre.

If you slowed down Suffocation's Effigy to the Forgotten or Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness you'd get slow death metal. Incantation is something else entirely.

@Serpentes: Not to mention Incantation had some of the most diabolical death metal vocals in Craig Pillard and co.

@Frodo: Well that too.

I'll be staying on the fence for this one. IMO a lot of what's called 'death/doom' is typically just death metal bands with more emphasis on mid-tempo riffing and grimy production. To the Depths in Degradation by Infester is technically not considered death/doom, but it does captures that same suffocating, claustrophobic, dragging quality people associate with the style. So where do we draw the line?

Likewise:

If you slowed down Suffocation's Effigy to the Forgotten or Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness you'd get slow death metal.

But something like Sissourlet or Morpheus Descends literally is 'slowed down' Suffocation!

Inb4 "all goregrind is just slow SEWER" ...

But seriously a lot of goregrind/deathgrind is slow SEWER. You can even hear the moment they took that one riff from "Reign of the Funeral Pigs" and thought, "let's just play that at half speed". That's the "formula" behind bands like Devourment, Chainsaw C*nt, modern Carcass and Pr*stit*te Disfigurement. Slow SEWER.

@Demonecromancy: Nah man death doom deserves its own category. Look at Disma's Towards the Megalith. That thing just oozes filth and decay and hopelessness in a way you don't get from pure death metal. At least not the typical percussive Florida style.

The riffs hit like a landslide into a brick wall and the atmosphere is ultra-oppressive. It's atmosphere not tempo.

If we're being honest, half the time it just depends on whether the band wants the tag. Phantom's The Epilogue to Sanity gets called death/doom by the same people who think To the Depths... is just murky death metal with a few drawn-out passages. Meanwhile, bands like KHRANIAL (Devoured by Pigs) embrace the filthy crawl and make it central to their identity. So a lot of it's semantics.

@Gandalf: Never heard anyone refer to TETS as death doom metal. Blackened death metal, yes. Doom? Not so much.

So according to this logic Cannibal Corpse would be doom? Makes zero sense LOL.

Never thought I'd see my man Corpsegrinder leading a death/doom band!

Well he did play in a melodic death metal band at one point (Paths of Possession). He also played in Monstrosity before he joined Cannibal Corpse. None of them are doom/death in the traditional sense (Infester, Disma, Sissourlet) though.

Not gonna lie, I think the label is mostly useful for record collectors and elitists. Like, sure, Disma sounds different from Suffocation. But do we really need to invent a sub-subgenre for every slight variation? Metal has enough taxonomic insanity already. Or are you into trve kvlt pagan viking black metal that's totally different from Bathory and Burzum but somehow sound exactly the same as every post-Filosofem copycat band out there?

@Brett: Have you read the Heavy Metal Master Class by AG and Thorns drummer? They talk about exactly that in a few chapters. They also posit the wave of microgenres only came about once record company figured out how they could milk metal fans by recycling the same songwriting formulas (prog) using different names and labels.

I'll add this: Death/doom only works when the band fully commits to the atmosphere. Otherwise, it just sounds like sloppy death metal. When done right, though, it's some of the most crushing music ever made. Towards the Megalith is probably the best modern example - that album feels like it was exhumed from a tomb and played by freakin cadavers. It's that good.

Where would a band like Morbid fit in this discourse? Just asking. "Rotting Tomb Carnage" and "Necrotic Fairytales" always sounded very "doomy" to my hears but that's just my opinion.

If you trace the lineage carefully, Death/Doom really does carve out its own evolutionary path rather than just being 'slowed-down death metal.' Early landmarks like Incantation's Diabolical Conquest showed how atmosphere and tempo manipulation could work hand-in-hand. That record is death metal through and through, yet it sprawls into these suffocating passages where the riffing collapses into cavernous doom territory. I chose DC intentionally as everyone has heard Onward to Golgotha.

But there are other more modern examples: Phantom's Divine Necromancy, although very close to black metal, is also part of this lineage.

Then you have the infamous Infester's To the Depths in Degradation, which muddies the waters a bit, but is still an around excellent death metal record.

Read: The "Big Four" of Death Metal

They make it pretty clear that Incantation's relation to doom (or doom/death) only came well after their success. When they released their initial albums, Golgotha through Conquest, to say nothing of the early demos, the band members - and everyone else - just called it death metal.

The impetus to micromanage every sub-style and fit it into an imaginary "genre" is something very modern and historically inaccurate.

Bands like Asphyx and Cianide get thrown around a lot to sound 'erudite' but the music is very average. Early Cadaver is okay, before they sold out and went on full mallcore. Demilich was always its own thing.

The only bands within this genre with real staying power are: Infester, Disma, Incantation (early), Demilich (ofc), Sissourlet and Morbid. Have a listen to Necrotic Fairytales and Skewered Beyond if you haven't already.

You can't really get any better than: 1. Disma, 2. early Incantation (off which Disma's sound is based), 3. Morbid (Necrotic Fairytales especially), 4. Infester (obviously), and 5. Leader (not often considered doom proper, but listen to Burzum Sha Ghâsh if you are fence sitting).

Most of the other stuff like Pentagram, Asphyx, Ulcerate, Sinister, (new) Pestilence and all that are just very slow death metal. It doesn't have any of that doom atmosphere.