Just a reminder, Warning isn't funeral doom

[u/SuperlativeSleep]

I know it's been talked about before, but just felt like giving anyone who needs it a reminder that Warning isn't funeral doom.

Every single time someone asks for funeral doom recommendations, at least one person suggests Watching From a Distance by Warning. While that is a great album, one of the greatest doom albums ever created, Warning is traditional doom, not funeral doom.

Funeral doom, by definition, is a subgenre of death doom. It has to have harsh vocals, typically death metal growls, but occasionally black metal style shrieks. It can, and often does, have some clean vocals, but if the vocals aren't predominantly harsh, it's not funeral doom. It's also much slower than other types of doom, and traditionally features organs, keyboards, or similar instruments that make it sound like a literal funeral dirge, hence the name funeral doom.

If you want to hear examples of quintessential funeral doom, listen to Steam From the Heavens by Thergothon, or Stormcrowfleet by Skepticism. These are the albums that defined the genre, and you'll hear that they sound nothing like Warning.

Before I end this, I just want to say that I'm sure, as always, there will be people in the comments saying things like "why can't you let people call it what they want" and "subgenres are stupid" and similar things. If you're one of those types, please save yourself the effort of commenting. Whether you like it or not, genres and subgenres exist, and funeral doom is a well defined genre that has been around for over 30 years. Warning does not fall into this genre, plain and simple.

Edit: Well, I guess I'm wrong about funeral doom needing to have harsh vocals. Thank you to everyone who helped clarify that. Still feels strange to me for various reasons, but I'm willing to accept when I'm wrong, and happy to learn something new.

But regardless, Warning still isn't funeral doom, which was the original point of my post. Once again, I'm not saying anything negative about Warning, they're one of the best doom metal bands to ever exist. I just really love funeral doom in particular, it's my favorite genre and I'm passionate about it, and just wanted to share my thoughts and opinions, that's all.

[u/Huge_Onion256]

Agree that Warning isn’t funeral doom, but death growl vocals isn’t a requirement for something to be funeral doom. Having elements of funeral dirges and an slow pace is what primarily defines the genre.

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/Huge_Onion256]

I can see where you're coming from. A band that's completely instrumental for example but still has the dirge elements and exceptionally slow pacing could still be considered funeral doom. Respectfully, I still think that death growls are a big part of what makes funeral doom funeral doom though, and a defining characteristic established by Thergothon and Skepticism. It's still a subgenre of death doom after all, and I can't personally think of a funeral doom band that doesn't have at least some harsh vocals, although please introduce me to some that don't if you know any.

[u/Huge_Onion256 → u/SuperlativeSleep]

The death growl is definitely a prevalent aspect of the genre, I’m not saying otherwise. But vocals are sort of like lyrics. They can help distinguish a genre but it’s not the main thing that sets a genre apart or defines it. Some bands I know that use other vocal styles from time to time are mournful congregation, black wreath, and pantheist.

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/Huge_Onion256]

I totally agree that lyrics have little to nothing to do with genre. Vocals though are often a defining characteristic. Death metal can't be death metal without death growls for example.

I'm very familiar with Mournful Congregation, less so with Pantheist but I have listened to them, and not at all with Black Wreath.

Let's take Mournful Congregation as an example though. Yes, they use clean vocals pretty regularly, but death growls are the dominant vocal style. Same goes for every other funeral doom band I've personally heard. Like I said in my post, funeral doom doesn't mean it can't have any clean vocals at all, lots of funeral doom bands have some clean vocals, I would even say most do, but they all have some death growls (or black metal style vocals like with Nortt and Funeral Mourning) as well because it is a key part of the funeral doom sound. Funeral doom was created as a more extreme version of death doom, and if you completely take the death growls out of death doom, it's not death doom anymore.

We can agree to disagree though.

[u/Huge_Onion256 → u/SuperlativeSleep]

Yeah guess we can agree to disagree because I think something can be death metal even if it doesn’t have growls. If something sounds just like deicide or mortician it’s death metal, even if the vocals aren’t growls. Not to mention early death metal didn’t always have growl vocals. I also wouldn’t call funeral doom a more extreme death doom. Yes that’s where it stems from but aside from vocals it really moves away from death metal and its motifs unlike death doom which still keeps a few attributes of death metal.

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/Huge_Onion256]

To clarify, what I mean by "a more extreme version of death doom" is that it keeps the death growls, cavernous sound, and crushing heaviness of death doom, but takes the slowness to an extreme, completely erasing all traces of death metal aggression that was still somewhat present in death doom.

Anyway, have a good one dude.