Metal has no shortage of hyper-specific subgenres, the vast majority of which sound exactly as advertised on the tin: grindcore, funeral doom, tech-death, and so on. Doomgaze is similarly straightforward, at least at first blush—take doom metal, combine it with shoegaze, et voilá. Oh, if only it were that open-and-shut: Depending on who you’re asking, the term can refer to My Bloody Valentine-esque stunners performed at a snail’s pace; depressive, faintly grungy lo-fi racket; post-metal enshrouded in pot smoke; or something else entirely. Even the bands’ guesses are as good as ours, even among those who self-identify; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Fuzznaut put out a line of “What The F*ck is Doomgaze?” koozies, and they’re all sold out.
Perhaps the ambiguous definition stems from the collective context under which it entered the public consciousness. Compared to styles like dungeon synth and blackgaze—which major record labels and prominent music critics quickly embraced, and therefore legitimized—doomgaze is more of an “if you know you know” kind of thing, largely concentrated around communities on RateYourMusic and Reddit. Bearing that in mind, consider the perspective of the preeminent doomgaze scholar: a fan known simply as Wyyvern, whose 2020 primer is the most comprehensive writing on the subject to date. “‘Slow, wall-of-sound post-metal’ is the shortest, most accurate description I can think of,” they write. “Why did doomgaze end up being the term? Not too sure, but it’s not as bad as “trap metal,” at least.” (Amen to that.)
What we’ve got, then, is a slippery eel of a style that defies consensus in the traditional sense, its canon unified less by individual signifiers than by overarching vibes; a decades-long, impossibly loud pursuit of the sublime perceived and chronicled well after the fact. Still, with 1400 albums on Bandcamp bearing the doomgaze tag so far, it looks like it’s here to stay. No other option than to roll up our sleeves and get to it—whatever the hell “it” is. Without further ado, here are 10 doomgaze albums to know.
Jesu
Jesu (2004)
The mastermind behind industrial-metal pioneers Godflesh, and the drummer of grindcore legends Napalm Death before that, Justin Broadrick ranks among the most influential heavy musicians of the past three decades. It’s a bit ironic, then, that all paths to doomgaze flow through Jesu: a side project formed in the wake of Godflesh’s initial breakup that, while occasionally crushing at times, treated heaviness as the atmospheric means for some awestruck end, as opposed to a ride on some hellish assembly line. It is this compelling conceit—filtered through Broadrick’s novel fusion of doom metal, slowcore, and shoegaze, unpacked across extensive, marathon-like runtimes— that makes 2004’s self-titled album doomgaze’s de facto ancestor, immortalized by slow-burning masterpieces like “Guardian Angel” and “Walk on Water.”
Nadja
Truth Becomes Death (2005)
Rumbling drone, harsh noise, forlorn post-rock, soothing ambient, electronic experiments, gauzy shoegaze: Nadja’s sound contains multitudes. I’m not just talking influences, either: Since forming in 2003, the Toronto duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff have dropped over 100 releases, 60 of them albums, making their discography the deepest on this list by far—as well as one of the most diverse. That said, piecing together their foundational role in doomgaze doesn’t require digging; just direct your attention to 2005’s debut, Truth Becomes Death, and let the music explain the rest. Nadja have cited Broadrick as a key influence, along with bands like My Bloody Valentine, Swans, and Neurosis; and their epics follow a similarly weighty approach; eerie melodies amassing bulk with each seismic loop, sawtoothed textures, and piercing instrumentals snowballing into oblivion in the most spectacular manner possible. But where the average Jesu or Godflesh song plays like some isolated transmission from a one-man-machine, the tracks on Truth Becomes Death are fueled by a raw, animalistic chemistry—a gloriously unsettling mind-meld sustained by superhuman stamina. The consistency and range of Nadja’s catalog, reinforced by unstoppable drive and technical mastery, cemented their status as doomgaze OGs years before the term even began circulating. That just makes Truth Becomes Death all the more groundbreaking.
The Angelic Process
Weighing Souls With Sand (2007)
Founded in 1999 in Athens, Georgia, The Angelic Process—Kris Angylus and Monica Dragynfly—are doomgaze’s other founding power couple. The duo didn’t know it at the time, but their magnum opus, 2007’s Weighing Souls With Sand, would be the last music they’d ever make. A few months after release, in fall 2007, Angylus suffered a major hand injury that left him unable to play music, keeping The Angelic Process off the road indefinitely. He died on April 26, 2008 at the age of 29, and Dragynfly, who subsequently retired from music, died on April 1, 2023—her 47th birthday. The Angelic Process may be gone, but their iconic, influential sound is forever etched into doomgaze history, and by extension, every doomgaze-aligned artist that came afterwards.
True Widow
Circumambulation (2013)
Vinyl LP, T-Shirt/Apparel
If the aforementioned holy trinity—Jesu, Nadja, and The Angelic Process—laid the groundwork for what would eventually be known as doomgaze, then the members of True Widow were its most pivotal ambassadors. The Texan trio formed in 2007 and rose to prominence with their third album Circumambulation, released via the respected metal label Relapse Records. Thanks to its straightforward, streamlined songwriting and satisfying Southern-gothic sprawl, the record was a huge hit, netting glowing reviews from mainstream outlets such as Pitchfork and NPR, as well as opening slots for high-profile acts ranging from metallurgists (Between the Buried and Me, Yob) to indie rockers (Kurt Vile, Surfer Blood). The big-tent appeal baked into True Widow’s menace becomes particularly noticeable on songs like “HW: R,” which could pass for Sonic Youth shredding in a decaying cathedral. Thus did Circumambulation go down in history as one of, if not the, biggest success stories in doomgaze—not just in the 2010s, but for all posterity.
Planning For Burial
Desideratum (2014)
Planning For Burial, the project of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania multi-instrumentalist Thom Wasluck founded in 2005, is another key act from doomgaze’s second wave. Galvanizing themes of addiction, despair, and isolation into stark, lo-fi soundscapes swarming with static and fuzz, he doesn’t just dissect the Rust Belt psyche on Desideratum, his excellent second album; he mashes those demons to a pulp and splatters the guts across the canvas, so the lines of tension feel smeared, scrambled, in a fury that feels almost Pollock-like. Wasluck’s sound experienced a significant growth spurt in the years following this release, embracing maximalist industrial rock à la Nine Inch Nails on 2017’s follow-up Below The House, their most widely known album. But if you’re craving that classic doomgaze sound, all singular, devastating glory, Desideratum is the best place to start.
Palehorse/Palerider
Burial Songs (2017)
Vinyl LP
Now we make our way to the current crop of doomgaze bands, beginning with Palehorse/Palerider, a phenomenal (and often overlooked) metal band from Denver, Colorado, who offer a softer, more contoured approach to the craft on their sole album, Burial Songs. Except for a few harrowing passages here and there (the first half of “Nero”’s nearly 10-minute runtime is mostly concerned with making guitars go boom), it offers the smoothest, least intimidating listening experience on this list by a considerable margin, all spacious arrangements, hi-fidelity production, and layered vocal melodies. Those hankering for unhinged screams or maniacal solos will almost certainly be disappointed—it’s a joyride, not a funeral march—but who needs the hard stuff when you’ve gateway drugs like “Sundowning?”
Holy Fawn
Death Spells (2018)
Holy Fawn describes their impressionistic, tempestuous guitar music as “loud heavy pretty noises”: a genre-agnostic distinction, but also as close to a layperson’s definition of doomgaze as you can get. Carried by guitarists Ryan Osterman’s and Evan Phelps’s dual-pronged, Deftones-esque assaults and Austin Reinholz’s frothing post-metal percussion, the Arizona trio formed in 2015, placing them between the melodic, maximalist second wave and the genre agnosticism of the present day; Death Spells, their 2018 debut, was arguably the most important record released during this transitional period, catapulting Holy Fawn from relative obscurity to suspected GOAT status by virtue of its sharp songwriting approach and creative nods to dark folk and art rock. As such, it’s also one of the best starting points for folks who want to get into doomgaze, but could do with a little less “doom” and a lot more “gaze”—or, to bring it all back around, loud, heavy, pretty noises.
Fuzznaut
Form In Emptiness (2019)
Fuzznaut is Emilio Rizzo, an experimental guitarist and clinical social worker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who, when not on the clock, can be found in the studio perfecting the art of drumless doomgaze. You read that right: no vocals, no drums, no bass, no synths, just molasses fretwork on acid, slouching toward infinity. If his albums, particularly 2019’s underrated Form In Emptiness, resemble drone-doom to the naked ear, it’s just by nature of construction; reared on mostly ’90s grunge and hardcore, Rizz initially connected with—and ultimately embraced—doom metal as an enabler of immediacy and riffs: “the best part of the song but over and over again,” as he put it in a 2018 interview. To that end, Form In Emptiness pushes this principle to its dynamic and compositional extremes, bringing everything—and I mean everything—back to the riff; the end result is one, long, tinnitus-inducing mantra to rule them all, a mystifying entry to the doomgaze canon.
Faetooth
Remnants of the Vessel (2022)
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD), Cassette
If we want to get into the weeds, Faetooth aren’t a doomgaze outfit; formed in 2018, they’re the world’s very first “fairy doom” band. Nevertheless, the Angelinos’ sound is largely aligned with the broader aesthetic, parlaying slow, ashen melodies and metallic textures into vast, boundless song structures that expand and condense in white-hot, slow motion;—the same distinctive, lava lamp-esque listening experience delivered elsewhere on this list, just cut with rainbow pixie dust instead of paraffin, not to mention enough ritualistic high fantasy to make George R.R. Martin tip his fisherman’s cap. Juxtaposing forceful, cataclysmic riffs with gauzy, radiant effects, primal catharsis with New Age mystique, 2022’s debut, Remnants of the Vessel landed Faetooth bonafides from not just from doomgaze stans, but the wider metal fandom; listening to stunners like “She Cast A Shadow” and “Discarnate,” you can understand why.
Renewer
SUNNE(2024)
Vinyl LP
Yet another outfit spawned in the Golden State post-pandemic—in this case, Sacramento—Renewer galvanize doomgaze’s dynamic contrasts into a cosmic, contemplative sound that underscores the subgenre’s ancestral ties to post-rock and slowcore. They recorded their debut album SUNNNE with Jack Shirley, best known for producing Deafheaven’s Sunbather; much like that paradigm-shifting LP, it’s a record that emanates fury and grace in equal amounts across similarly elongated runtimes. Don’t miss showstoppers like “Crossing The Void” and “Going Gone,” which start off soothing and folksy only to plummet Icarus-style by the final moments, the lilting tenor vocals and airy fretwork pierced by guttural screams and lightning-speed hammer-ons just as the tempos peak.
