The Best Doom Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2024

Arð - Untouched By Fire

Medieval Christianity prefigured metal in a lot of ways that aren't immediately obvious. Sure, you've got your Iron Maidens and your devil's tritones and your fabulously maleficent demonological doctrines - but what about the monks chanting? Think of the monks chanting. The gloomy sounds echoing through the cold, stony monasteries of northern England are perfectly suited to doom metal: the processional pace, the mournful melodies, the very real sense that you're just eating up time before you age, fail, and die. Winterfylleth keyboardist Mark Deeks has handed down a new testament of Arð, once again melding the deep, sonorous tones of monastic singing to the slow, dirge-like compositions of classic doom. In this tale of Oswald, King of Northumbria and Christian saint, Arð demonstrates the power of its uniquely antiquated sound.

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Capilla Ardiente - Where Gods Live And Men Die

Doom metal is often met by newcomers’ misconceptions regarding its pacing and atmosphere. But top-quality traditional doom metal doesn’t have to stick to the standards. Enter Capilla Ardiente with their third opus, Where Gods Live And Men Die. Speed and aggression are not strange characteristics for these Chileans. You would be hard-pressed to find a doom metal album from 2024 that is as chock-full of crushing riffs as this one. The masterful riff work is then accompanied by galloping drums and baleful solos that result in these four long epics. And that’s without mentioning Felipe Kutzbach's soaring vocals. His evocative tone appears in two albums in this year’s Metal Storm Awards, a testament to this man’s incredible talent. Where Gods Live And Men Die is an ideal album for anyone who desires doom metal capable of reaching across the genre’s boundaries with fantastic results.

Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose

It's not surprising that something about epic doom metal goes hand in hand with religious themes. Something about the somberness, grandiosity, and despair of the religious experience, when confronted with the silence of divinity, the ecstasy of rituals, or tales of creation myths and afterworlds, seems to work very well in tandem with how doom's sorrowful tones can take a more passionate and powerful leaning in the epic doom metal branch. So there is something about how the vibe of Crypt Sermon's The Stygian Rose is already dark and destitute even without said religious connotations but feels almost narrative and fantastical with it. And all of that with some meaty riffing and some gruff and passionate vocals.

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Dionysiaque - Diogonos

Dionysiaque’s doom metal feels unprocessed and pure, coming straight from the heart. The band’s debut album was recorded live in five days, and it sure sounds like it, because there is clearly no autotune here and no unnecessary additional takes. Instead, there is a feel of authenticity when listening to Diogonos, but there is also a theatrical, playful, and ritualistic atmosphere in the songs. Ten minute-long tracks, like "By The Styx" and "Vineyard And Ivy", seem to fly by, while the blackened touches, the classic heavy metal influence, and the thrashy twists make the doom sound more adventurous and more daring.

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Dool - The Shape Of Fluidity

The whole point of fluidity is that it has no shape - isn't that what Bruce Lee taught us? - and it's that very attempt to place borders on something that naturally abhors them that defines not only the thematic concerns of Dool's third album but our own difficulties in trying to place it in a genre category. Dool won't commit to one easy style: there's gothic post-punk atmosphere, psychedelic stoner shuffles, and of course pummeling chunks of doom. They're a hard band to place, both warm and distant, heavy and hazy, and Raven van Dorst's nasal, wispy voice hovers right at the edge of it all, both haunting and pained according to each piece. We’ve settled on Doom just to give Dool a home somewhere, but there’s a variety of sounds to savor in The Shape Of Fluidity.

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Hamferð - Men Gu​ð​s Hond Er Sterk

On an isolated island group in the North Sea, a band makes foreboding doom that feels like it has a heavy anchor in the isolation and stories of their islands. Men Gu​ð​s Hond Er Sterk follows six years after Támsins Likam, and in the meantime the band's experience playing live pushed them towards also recording live in studio, something that led to an even more dynamic sound, with slower slows and heavier heavies. But the best part about it is that even with the language barrier, there's a strong narrative feeling that seeps into the album nonetheless. It's not necessary to know anything about the whaling accident that serves as real-life inspiration - you can feel the descent into the tragic and then the hope and survival that endure to the end. "But God's hand is strong" said one of the survivors, and that serves as the album's title.

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Lowen - Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran

On top of having what must be the most striking album artwork of 2024, Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran represents a significant next step in the remarkable evolution of Lowen. A band who but two albums ago were playing promising yet rough-edged stoner doom, the UK act have largely shed the stoner elements, refined the production, dialled up the intensity of their increasingly unique spin on doom, and accomplished an even more synergistic and captivating integration of the band's Middle Eastern musical influences into both the guitars and Nina Saeidi's gloriously powerful and resonant vocals. The album has emphatic percussion, riffs for days, and nifty twists and turns that prevent the conveyer-belt onslaught of outstanding ideas from becoming overwhelming.

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Pallbearer - Mind Burns Alive

When Pallbearer debuted over a decade ago, they were hailed as the restorers of great traditional doom metal; they moved pretty immediately to the forefront of the modern scene, and that’s where they’ve stayed album after album. But now there’s another doom metal tradition that they have decided to embrace, and that’s the arc away from, well, traditional doom metal: Mind Burns Alive sees Pallbearer in their 40 Watt Sun era, focusing on intimacy and vulnerability with lighter, more atmospheric and vocal-driven compositions. Pallbearer don’t scale back enough to drop the metal elements altogether in the way that 40 Watt Sun, Anathema, Katatonia, or others did in their own journeys – Mind Burns Alive always comes back in force with full electricity and remains dedicated to the power of doom. The painstakingly slow progression of its riffs and leads and the broken-hearted melodies often evoke Warning more than anything else. But this is an approach that prizes emotion above all else: it aches, it yearns, it suffers, and it can find strength without relying purely on heaviness.

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Ponte Del Diavolo - Fire Blades From The Tomb

Ponte Del Diavolo’s debut album is a doom revelation, full of occult rock and post-punk, as well as blackened and darkwave sensitivities. Atmospheric nightly soundscapes, fierce aggressive leanings, medieval mysteries, and ritualistic invocations of evil find their place in this engrossing manifestation of menacing doom, while the haunting melodies, the dual bass attack, the evocative clarinet, and the Siouxsie Sioux-esque vocals make for a bold sound that is both familiar and uncommon in its nature.

Scald - Ancient Doom Metal

Scald are ancient doom metal – their legendary debut realized a new dawn of doom almost 30 years ago before the untimely death of vocalist Agyl pressed them back into the vales of myth. The mysterious mists have cleared and once again Scald have rare wisdom to share, thundering and bellowing in magnificent strides that only bands of a truly special scale can achieve. Capilla Ardiente vocalist Felipe Plaza Kutzbach steps into the void left by Agyl, furthering the band's legacy with great aplomb. Ancient Doom Metal is an honorable sequel to one of the most magnificent classics of doom metal; when it comes to epic doom, there are few names more lauded than Scald.

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