British Doom Metal: The Greatest Albums

Source // www.nuclearblast.de

British Doom Metal, possibly the finest noise known to man (we have no scientific proof of this but please indulge us), began with the mighty Black Sabbath. Those ominous bells, that incessant rain, Tony Iommi’s spine-tingling tritone riff and Ozzy Osbourne’s terrified wail culminated in a sound that would eventually be defined as Doom Metal.

Back in 1970, “Black Sabbath” was simply Heavy Metal of course, Doom Metal wouldn’t be fully formed and legitimately defined as such until the mid 1980’s when the likes of Saint Vitus released their self-titled debut, Trouble released Psalm 9, Pentagram finally released Relentless (it sat on the shelf for 3 years and Pentagram originally formed 14 years prior!) and Candlemass delivered Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, quite possibly the greatest Doom Metal album ever recorded.

But, and that’s a colossal Doom Riff sized but, it all began in Britain and it began with Proto-Doom bands such as Cream, Budgie, Witchfinder General and Sabbath. Bands who cemented the foundations Doom was eventually built on but you’ll not find these Proto-Doom legends included here. This feature instead concentrates on those British bands who lead Doom Metal down new paths once the genre had been fully formed and categorised as a sub-genre in itself.

We’ve also adopted a one album per band mantra to keep things fresh; the entire back catalogue of Worship Metal favourites My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost just wouldn’t be fair now would it! 

Anyway, that’s the boring intro bit over with. Unleash the Doom!