This isn't necessarily the best of the best, this is a list of 10 of my favourite doomy epics. I'm not neccesarily talking about the genre Doom, I'm talking about tracks that will enthrall you, tracks that will suck you in and make you feel the highest highs and the lowest lows, generally in one track. These are songs that gods and demons came together to create for the betterment of humankind. In no particular order, sit back, grab on to all you hold dear and witness the unfathomable.
There is a playlist down the bottom, I suggest you settle in, grab your favourite implement and blaze up, for this is a long and arduous journey but it is very, very rewarding.
Serpentcult - Raised By Wolves
Usually when you hear rain and a crow cawing at the start of a track you know you're in for a bit of a journey and Raised by Wolves is absolutely no exception. It is an extremely rare track to find, I don't even know where I got it from if I'm honest. I think it's the vocals that take me to another place, you can feel the despair and raw, crushing defeat as the vocals, which must have about 5 different tracks overlapping through out the song, are shouted, screamed and wailed at you with great harmonic presence. This song thunders along gaining momentum until all of a sudden, nothing.
Demonic Death Judge - Carlyle
This song builds and builds to the most epic and immense crescendos of all time when the guitarist madly solo's out with an air raid siren playing, and just when you think you can't take any more... it stops. Right when it's supposed to. It also has a cover of Immigrant Song afterwards as a secret song.
Electric Wizard - Saturns Children
Saturns Children is one of the greatest doom epics ever concieved, the droning feedback flows through the entire track begging you to be led down the rabbit hole and as you tumble and fall blindly through the void things begin to take shape and you'll come to understand the darkness and how to control the shapes as you slowly become the god of undoing.
Yob - The Great Cessation
This is probably one of my all time favourite tracks, you can feel the energy gathering from within yourself ready to explode in to an outpouring of emotion at any second. It has so much fucking power it drones along with the vocals sounding like they're being spoke from the heavens beckoning you to your doom!
Altar of Plagues - Neptune is Dead
Altar of Plagues are predominantly a black metal band but some of their epics transcend genre and are just music in it's purest form. Neptune is Dead is their finest example of this. This song is pure despair in every sense of the word, like a funeral keening this song takes you to some truly dark places and once you've been you'll be glad you went, because it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be.
Sleep - Dopesmoker
This is the grand daddy of them all, 60minutes long. An epic journey of monstrous proportions. There's no compare to Dopesmoker, it's a winding journey through a hashishian landscape, where does the song end, nobody knows. It's a fabled song that has a troubled upbringing, written by one of the original sludge bands.
Ufomammut - Lacrimosa
The kings of space doom with their crowning achievement, this is a considerably shorter song than the others on this list but don't let that fool you it has just as much substance as the rest. The reverb carried out in this song is beyond repose, it sounds as if you're listening to this song through the vacuum of space and time.
Conan - Hawk as Weapon
Chunky does not even come close to describing the sheer weight of noise that bombards your psyche while you listen to this song. Conan are always heavy but this is beyond anything else they have released and it's terrifying.
Pallbearer - Foreigner
If there was an award for the most epic story driven masterpiece of doom disastery, this song would win, every year. Pallbearer plumbed the depth of human emotion to deliver one of the most incredible songs I've ever heard... and from their first full length album no less!
Dvne - Descent of the Asheran
This is a little more proggy than the rest of the list but this song deserves a place here it is most certainly a sprawling story driven epic, soaring vocals, coupled with gutteral trash. This song is called descent and that's exactly what it feels like, it starts positive and feels like you're soaring to the heavens then something grabs your ankle and starts pulling you down and down in to the depths of the chasm.
