With the turn of the millennium came releases of newer bands, such as Shape of Despair, Mournful Congregation, the "Nautik Doom" group Ahab and one-man-projects Nortt and Doom:VS.[9][19][20] Funeral doom scenes cropped up over the world, such as the one in Russia.[21] The Solitude Productions label, for example, became a major force in shaping its future.[22] Like no metal subgenre before it, the internet boom greatly helped funeral doom reach new fans.[9] By the 2010s, funeral doom reached into metal's mainstream.[23]
Another sign of funeral doom's increasing status was Peaceville's move to buy the rights of Avantgarde Music's back catalogue.[24] Responsible for launching the careers of Autopsy, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema, Peaceville was the major player in shaping what became known as death-doom.[25] This now meant that Peaceville had a significant stake in funeral doom's history: it owned all of Thergothon's and Unholy's discography, along with two Evoken albums.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32]
Although it has a substantial following, funeral doom has also its share of criticism. Chronicles of Chaos co-editor Pedro Azevedo argued that, to the average listener, funeral doom might sound "boring and repetitive".[33] Ciarán Tracey, in an article for Terrorizer, acknowledged that the increasing popularity of funeral doom also meant that it now had its "share of hangers-on and can act as a repository for pseudo-literary teen poetry and artless abstraction, so a certain critical scrutiny has become necessary."[9]
Characteristics
Instrumentation and vocals
Coc's Azevedo described funeral doom's core sound as a mix of "downtuned guitars, ponderous drumming, church organs and cavernous death vox" done at an "extremely slow" pace. Though it kept death metal's low-tuning and death growls, funeral doom eschewed most of its complex song structures and rapid tempo changes in a favor of a minimalist approach and slower tempos. Depending on the band, it keeps some genre-specific characteristics of death-doom, such as violins and female vocals.[33] Some background elements - church bells, keyboards or synthesizers - are many a time part of funeral doom's overall sound, adding a "dreamlike" quality to what is often described as a heavy and burdensome atmosphere.[34]
Funeral doom's name has two distinct genealogies. One source claimed it was a namesake of Norway's death-doom outfit Funeral.[37] It might have come, too, from Skepticism's pipe organ-like keyboard timbre, which reminded listeners of funeral music.[38] Keyboardist Eero Pöyry said that "I position myself as a church organ player in a metal band".[39] Furthermore, Pöyry explained that, at the time,
Many bands were either using [keyboards] as background, almost like an effect, and others were using it like a second solo guitar, using keyboard solos and all that. Neither of those felt like ours. I kind of thought what a keyboard player in a metal band like this should be like. It should be like the organist in a church. In that lineup, the organ became much like what the second guitar would have been. The way to position it in the sound was church organ-like. Thinking through all the things you should do and not do… I started taking it in the organist direction instead of soloist direction [...]. It's pretty much a church organ setup in a metal band as well.[39]
Ebner, Arne (25 July 2010). Ästhetik des Doom(PDF) (Bachelor) (in German). Macromedia University of Applied Sciences for Media and Communication – Cologne. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016.
