LACUNA COIL	This band came highly recommended by a few doomers who visit my site often, so I bought "In a Reverie" sight unseen and heard.  I must say it is nice, using male and female vocals, but I wouldn't really call this doom either.  It's rock and roll out of Italy, melodic, not heavy and thrashy, reminds me a bit of the Gathering's new style. "Comalies" is a wonderful addition to my metal collection, same style but on a bigger scale. A must have!
LAKE OF TEARS	If you like Tiamat's "Clouds", you'll love Lake of Tears' old stuff.  Not death vocals, but not clean either, this band combines doomy riffs with great melodies using some keyboards, but not too many.  Definitely heavy metal doom for sure.  The new stuff like "Forever Autumn" takes them into a whole new direction.  Now they sound more like Dream Theatre or new Fates Warning, not very heavy, more acoustic guitars, very melodic, clean vocals, I like it, give it a try!
LEFT-HAND SOLUTION	Like great female vocals to go along with your doom?  Look no more.  Left Hand Solution's "Fevered" is easy to find!  Great stuff with their own style, they rock and they can also be mellow.
MEMORY GARDEN	This band rocks!  Their disc "Tides" is a masterpiece to be sure.  But don't be fooled web surfers.  There is another band with the same name with web sites out there that is wimpy dance techno music so beware! This band is more heavy metal, melodic metal to be more precise.  A frequent visitor to my site told me about them and I'm glad he did!  I had to order this one, it's not easy to find.   They are another band in the "progressive metal" category. More Dream Theatre (heavier of course) than Slayer.
MOONSPELL	This band is interesting in the fact that they are very folksy and you can hear that in their music. They are not really doom, but more heavy metal, "Wolfheart", "Irreligious", and "Sin Pecado" are great discs for anyone who likes their metal dark.
MORGION	This is doom at its most raw and wonderful. Death vocals with haunting melodies and eerie backgrounds. "Cloaked in Ages, Crowned in Earth " and "Solinari" are two discs that are true doom classics!  Their production is clear and crisp with haunting melodies and some instrumentals thrown in between tracks to make you weep. "Cloaked by Ages, Crowned in Earth" is by far the best doom release of 2004. Morgion have introduced clean vocals in with the death vocals and the ambient melodies will carry you away.
MORPHIA	Hey doomsters, do you love bands like Saturnus, Unholy, and slow metal bands with death vocals and a bit of keyboards thrown in? Well, my friends, Morphia is right up your alley. I want to thank the person who emailed me to recommend this band. I have to listen to them more before I give a full review, but at this point, I'm very interested and want to take it to the next step, maybe going steady? Who knows?
MY DYING BRIDE	This band is my all-time favorite doom band bar none! Their original style was very death-like and sometimes quite thrashy, but they have come to a point where they lost the death vocals and obtained "clean" vocals and violins (I love violins being a gypsy and all) which just makes me burn with pleasure. My favorite by this band is "Angel and the Dark River", it's not thrashy, quite the opposite, it's slow and melodic and just plain wonderful. For the thrash hound out there, try "Trinity" or "As the Flower Withers", you won't be disappointed. Check out "Songs of Darkness, Words of Light." Aaron and the boys are experimenting with different vocals styles while using the same formula that die hard fans (like myself) desire.
NECARE	This is a new and struggling band of doom metal worth a listen.  The lead singer of this band ran across my site and sent me their demo cd, and it is quite good.  I describe it as "trudging through mud" doom, very heavy, slow, suffocating, while remaining poetic and dark.
NECROPHOBIC	True black metal that will burn out your eardrums! Fast, yet melodic. If you like Satyricon, you will LOVE Necrophobic!
NEUROSIS	Putting a label on this band is very difficult. Did you ever hear progressive jazz, where there wasn't one certain sound, but the musicians playing different songs at the same time, creating a very unique and aquired sound? That is Neurosis. Some of the songs will make you bang your head, others will put you to sleep, yet others will make you stare at the stereo in wonder. This is metal, or a form of it, like you have never heard before. Listen to the song "The Tide" and you will be hooked.
NEVERMORE	This is another band that is not very doomy, but has its moments. They are very heavy and their release "The Politics of Ecstasy" is a very good disc and a must buy for headbangers. They also do a song on the Judas Priest Tribute Album, "Love Bites" that is sooo doomy I play it over and over! The song "Believe in Nothing" is a true metal masterpiece, best heard with four foot tall speakers, cranked up to 11.
NIGHTSKY BEQUEST	I liked the description of this band on blackmetal.com and decided to take a chance and boy, what a gift from the darkside I have found!  "Keep the Lonely Trees" is a masterpiece of doomy guitars, excellent usage of piano, synths, and yes, flutes, with a dreamy, ethereal female vocalist that sounds right out of the Dark Ages.  Lengthy songs, great melodies, this band from Bulgaria is a must for more melodic doom taste buds.  They have a new one out called "Of Sea, Wind and Farewell" the same style but better if you can believe it!  Flutes, great female vocals, go and get this one now!  I would say this is the "easy listening" of doom metal but don't get me wrong, they still rock hard at times as well.  This style is sort of like 3rd and the Mortal, great female vocals with haunting melodies, check it out.
NOVEMBER'S DOOM	Ah, the sweet sound of darkness, that is what you shall hear if you listen to November's Doom, a must for anyone into heavy but slow symphonic madness, a doom metal band out of America of all places!  It's about time a good metal band comes out of home sweet home!  Most of the bands on this site are from Norway, Germany, Sweden, are very hard to find, and you must pay outrageous import prices!  "Of Sculptured Ivy and Stone Flowers" (love that title) is heavy with rich melodies, it's great turn off the lights metal to mangle your mind!  "The Knowing" is also a great disc, it's a concept album actually, with different styles, some slow, some fast, all great. "To Welcome the Fade" is a dark, ethereal, doom metal harsh whisper in your ear, wonderful music.
THE OBSESSED	Someone wrote me and told me to check out The Obsessed, well, I liked the name so I did and I LOVED IT. "The Church Within" is doomy but more metal with clean vox and heavy guitars. I'm tellin ya, look in your local used CD store for these gems, I wouldn't have found half of these without them.
ODES OF ECSTASY	I was flipping through the heavy metal titles looking for the new Opeth CD and this treasure jumped out at me and said "buy me NOW" so I did.  The cd title is "Embossed Dream in Four Acts", it is a VERY short cd, comprised of only six songs, done in acts, ending with an instrumental "Vampire Hunter" with lots of keyboards and excerpts from Bram Stoker's Dracula.  The rest of the cd is great, with great keyboard work, heavy hitting guitar licks, clean male and female vox, a must for a doomer who likes to experiment.  At a whopping 20 minutes long, this one is worth the price and the time.
OLD MAN'S CHILD	I was attracted to this band by the cover of the CD and the name of the band.  I thought it would be doom, so I took a chance.   Well, it's not doom, it's complete, mind-blowing thrash black metal.  The only saving grace is sometimes it slows down (just a bit) so you can catch a phrase and a melody.  Not a favorite, but I don't hate it either.
OPETH	Opeth has moved up the ranks and now resides as my all-time favorite band. When I put their music on I am assaulted by extremely heavy metal with death vocals one second, and haunting melodies with clean vocals the next! Every Opeth song is about 50 different songs in one, something is in there for everyone! These guys are musical masters, still keeping with their rough edges but leaving room for excellent melodies and some cleaner vocals in spots. Someone asked me what band's library I would take if I were to be stranded on a desert island. Opeth would be the choice, I would never tire of their long and intricate songs!
PARADIGMA	The release "Skadi" is so doom typical, it follows almost all of the doom staples performed by the best, Theatre of Tragedy, My Dying Bride, Celestial Season, etc.  They use a mixture of male death vox, clean female soprano, and violins with melodic haunting tunes to get you through the night!  They do a kickass rendition of "Witch Hunt" originally done by Rush from "Moving Pictures" that is almost unrecognizable to the original, but still excellent in its own right.  Just got their "Mare Veris" and it is as I expected it would be, the eerie whispering with the background female vocals, crunching guitars.  They re-do some of their songs from "Skadi", they sound a bit different but the same elements are there.
PARADISE LOST	Paradise Lost used to be the masters of doom. With discs such as "Gothic", no one argued that these guys knew how to peel the paint off the walls while making you want to slit your wrists at the same time. As with most great pioneers, they must evolve, so Paradise Lost did just that. Their name is no longer synonymous with "doom" but they have crossed over to a more progressive metal style with clean vocals.
PARAMAECIUM	Upon first listening to this band you would never dream it is a Christian band but I looked into it and sure enough, it is.  This music has depth, fully bombastic and eerie doom to rival the most evil in the bunch.  With male death vocals, some female vox and wonderful use of violins and pianos, any fan of Theatre of Tragedy and Within Temptation would be mesmerized by their sound. This is another one of my all-time favorites.

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