To Love Gothic Metal

a quest for a musical apotheosis

Very much a product of its time, this is a page I have made to document and properly refer to my quest during May/June 2023 to find the perfect gothic doom album. At this point in time, I had recently deposed Deftones from my top 25 albums list, and realised upon relistening to Turn Loose the Swans and first hearing Katatonia/Tiamat that, given my aspect as a flamboyantly gay goth who loves romance, but also a self avowed doom freak, that the 25th inclusion had to be a gothic doom album. It simply made sense! I then spontaneously wrote myself a list of albums to consider for this most prestigious place, and realised that it was becoming too long and needed too aggressive a reformatting to prove useful to remain in my music diary. Thus, this page exists because this is my life and I am allowed to be self indulgent!
The primary mindset that I entered this with was needing to synthesise a lot of the elements I adored within the aforementioned artists that I loved. I needed from Katatonia's Brave Murder Day the divine songwriting and structural genius that is implicit within that genre, I needed the incredible musicianship and riff writing present on Dance of December souls - the two of those albums spent a long time conflicting in my head for which was my favourite actually; I feel still that both succeed and fail in the exact same areas the other fails or succeeds in, with DoDS being rough around the edges and slightly juvenile yet insanely skilled, and BMD being incredibly finely tuned and well balanced that you could drop it off a 40 story building and still have it land upright, but lacking a little in adventurous musicianship, and also lbr has fucking crap vocals from that opeth twat. The other band to consider chiefly were My Dying Bride. I was (and hopefully remain) ENAMOURED by the fact they have a violin player IN THE BAND, like, as important on the billing as the other musicians, not just a session guy. The devotion to achieving real romanticism is unreal and Martin Powell is a genius. I needed too for my victor a band that can capture the sheer joy as the violin licks in crown of sympathy. And so, my quest to synthesise all these disparate elements began
I am going to keep absolutely 0 consistency with what format and when I edit these things btw so be warned. My general idea though is that the "relistens" panel will be continuously edited to synthesise my perfect thoughts about them, whereas the new finds section I will cross out as I listen to them. But having said that I already broke that rule already and have some other ideas on how I format this so this may be a bit haphazard. But I'm having fun :3! Yes btw I will definitely have more fun compiling this list and getting excited over the prospect of hearing these albums than actually hearing them lol.

The Verdict:

In the end, it was decided that Turn Loose the Swans would be the album to take it. Whilst there are parts of it that remain mildly dissatisfying to me, as a package it is just unchallenged in the absolutely beautiful romanticism it presents. No other album of its ken manages to reach the sheer heights of beauty wrought in their darkwave tinged gothic doom - across its 7 songs it just does... everything it needs to do perfectly. Sear Me is a heartachingly beautiful darkwave track that serves not only as a perfect intro, but a fantastic song in its own right, and an incredibly brave and striking album to start off a record from what ostensibly was a death metal band. Your River's doom glory is the perfect counterweight to Stainthorpe's crooning romantic vocals, with the first harsh vocals on the album serving as the perfect release of tension. The Songless Bird's death/doom harshness, inspired by bands like Asphyx and Obituary mixes so perfectly with its brief violin reprises, the pure death/doom brutality mixing with a lilting gothic darkwave. The Snow in My Hand demonstrates the absolute perfect harmonisation and tasteful musicianship from the violinist, Martin Powell in his synthesis between his endlessly romantic violin work with the doom guitar lines, whilst a funeral dirge is played between the guitar and the vocals in what Stainthorpe refers to as just an utterly miserable song. The Crown of Sympathy is a song I could talk about until I died, I find my words failing to find me in even describing it; it is pure doom beauty. Turn Loose the Swans took the longest to click in me, and it was in fact reading the lyrics alongside it that truly made me understand the song - it is, in its own way, a ballad, a funeral dirge through the death of an artist, mixed with moments of honestly real death doom beauty. Finally, Black God finishes the album in a perfect way, with a stripped down and gorgeous female vocal placing a capstone upon a true monolith of neoclassical doom. It oozes romanticism and completely encapsulates the picture I desire from this style of music.
This was a wonderful journey though! It really rekindled my love for writing about music, and helped me disocver a great many bands that I know I will continue to listen to across my life! But when it comes to not just the best music, but the perfectly constructed album, all 7 tracks on Turn Loose the Swans come together in just perfect harmony to create the most beautiful piece that far far far transcends the sum of its parts. Tasteful and hardhitting at the same time, without sacrificing ever on the harsh death metal they peddled on their debut, whilst still allowing their trademarked romanticism space to breathe. It belongs to me in the hall of the best albums ever written.

the final longlist before i decided:


Turn Loose the Swans (Crown of Sympathy)
The Angel and the Dark River (Your Shameful Heaven)
Acme (Passover 1944)
Forever Scarlet Passion (Afterglow)
Musaeum Hermeticum (Whole demo)

RELISTENS

NEW FINDS