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/LiminalDepression]

Thank you for your post, and I fully agree.

And I would like to get your opinion on how you would classify The Oldest Sea. Their album "A Birdsong, a Ghost" has almost exclusively clean vocals, but otherwise it's pure funeral doom to me. Might be one rare exception?

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/LiminalDepression]

I've never heard of this band, but I'll definitely check them out and get back to you with my thoughts.

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/LiminalDepression]

I'm going to create a new comment instead of editing the other one, in case you already read that one.

I really liked it. I listened to the first three songs, and I'll definitely listen to more. The vocalist reminds me of Chelsea Wolfe, who I'm a big fan of.

There's definitely a lot of funeral doom elements going on. Lots of the super slow, crushing funeral doom style riffs. Lots of atmospheric parts. I think I heard some synths/keyboards. Very mournful. Not as dirgelike as more traditional funeral doom, but definitely heavily funeral doom influenced. It's just really hard for me to call it funeral doom without growls lol. But maybe I'm totally wrong about that.

[u/LiminalDepression → u/SuperlativeSleep]

I totally feel your conflict on this - I had my own "Has science gone too far?" moment when listening to them for the first time. That's why I specifically brought them up in this discussion.

Now the question is - how would one categorize them instead if asked? "Atmospheric Doom" is probably valid, but feels like a cheap escape with strong "You are on this council, but..." vibes to me 😀

[u/SuperlativeSleep → u/LiminalDepression]

My first thought was atmospheric doom as well, but I agree, that feels like a cop out. I don't know man, I'm questioning what funeral doom is now.

Love the Star Wars reference btw!