Search results
Gothic metal is a genre of music characterized as a combination of the dark atmosphere of gothic rock with the aggression of heavy metal. The genre originated during the early 1990s in Europe as an outgrowth of death/doom, a fusion of death metal, doom metal, and gothic rock.
- Chris Chantler
- Celtic Frost – Into The Pandemonium (1987) Not just the birthplace of avant garde metal, Swiss visionaries Celtic Frost’s third LP was steeped in gothic atmospheres wholly new to the genre.
- Type O Negative – Bloody Kisses (1994) Specifically it’s the digipak edition of the Drab Four’s third album that zeroes in on the full gothic motherlode: filling up the inlay with stone angels, dropping the interludes and fun punk knockabouts and replacing them with the doomed majesty of Suspended In Dusk, and resequencing the LP so it’s thrillingly topped and tailed by towering goth anthems Christian Woman and Black No 1 (Little Miss Scare-All).
- Paradise Lost – Draconian Times (1995) Paradise Lost’s second album, Gothic, blazed new trails for death and doom metal, but it was with this 1995’s breakthrough that they firmly planted their flag into the equidistant sweet spot between goth rock and heavy metal.
- My Dying Bride – Like Gods Of The Sun (1996) My Dying Bride’s doom always had a powerfully gothic sensibility, but this was where the Bradford sextet most fully, and seductively, embraced the form.
Gothic metal (or goth metal) is a fusion genre combining the aggression of heavy metal with the dark atmospheres of gothic rock. [1] The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music.
- Sisters of Mercy - Floorshow. "I’m sure that for many metalheads, this Leeds band needs little to no introduction as they are so synonymous with the goth movement (despite never referring to themselves as the ‘g’ word) but if you’ve ever been heckled walking down the road because you have long hair and wear black by someone who doesn’t know the difference between thrash and goth, then the Sisters are partly to blame.
- Ghost Dance - Deeper Blue. A neat segway from the Sisters brings us nicely onto another Leeds band but this time one that is possibly less renowned outside of the scene.
- Pink Turns Blue - I Coldly Stare Out. We had the pleasure of supporting these underground post-punk legends at a show in Bristol a few years ago. I’d been desperate to see them live for a while, so sharing the stage was a bit of an honour for me.
- Bauhaus - Double Dare. Another band that I’m sure even diehard metal fans will have heard of but maybe haven’t deigned to listen to is Bauhaus, perhaps because of an aversion to the band’s arguably overplayed, near 10-minute long dancefloor-filler Bela Lugosi’s Dead.
- Celtic Frost – Rex Irae
- Paradise Lost – Gothic
- Type O Negative – Black No 1
- The Vision Bleak – Into The Unknown
- Trail of Tears – When Silence Cries…
- Tristania – The Shining Path
- Cradle of Filth – Her Ghost in The Fog
- Draconian – Death, Come Near Me
- Moonspell – Opium
- Lacrimosa – Sapphire
Surprise! We’re not actually going to start this list with a Gothic Metal song, but with one of its precursors. Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium album from 1987 set the tone for all the Gothic Metal that followed, so let’s give them the honor they deserve. Rex Irae (Requiem)has the gothic theatrics, the combination of heavy and melodic music, an...
Time to explore a song from one of the first true Gothic Metal albums: Gothic by Paradise Lost (yes, that really is the name). You can easily identify some of the Gothic Metal characteristics: dark lyrics, growls from the male singer, a female soprano, and a dramatic and bombastic overall sound.
Time to switch to a cleaner and more popular sound. Even if you didn’t know the genre before, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of the Gods of Gothic Metal: Type O Negative. Their album Bloody Kisses and the song Black No 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)are often what comes to mind when talking about this music genre. It’s also a great example of slower-...
Most of the songs on this list were not exactly written yesterday. Although age does not really matter, I do want to point out that not all great Gothic Metal music is old. If you ever hear a fan of the genre complain that nothing decent came out in the past decade, let them listen to Into the Unknown by The Vision Bleak from their 2016 album The U...
When Gothic Metal songs combine the female soprano’s with the male growls, it is called the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ style. It is sometimes said that the clear, high-pitched female vocals are more gothic and the deep, male death growl vocals are more metal. One thing is certain though: they sound good together in Trail of Tears’ When Silence Cries!
Why use only one singer if you can have a few dozen? In addition to the vocal types previously described, some Gothic Metal bands like to add a choir to their music. A good example is the The Shining Pathby Tristania. Does the choir not make you feel as if you’re standing in a cathedral? It doesn’t get more goth than this.
Unsurprisingly, most Gothic Metal songs are not about sunshine and flowers (unless the sun is scorching vampires while the flowers are withering away on some tombstone). If you’re looking for a great example of typical Gothic Metal lyrics, look no further than Cradle of Filth. Her Ghost in the Foghas it all: love, death, despair, spooky metaphors, ...
Time to take a look at the Doom side of Gothic Metal. As both genres are a lot alike (think sadness, despair, and the tendency to be a little dramatic), it makes sense that many bands dabble in both. A great example of a Doom Metal band who often adopts a strong Gothic sound is Draconian. Their song Death, Come Near Me has the sense of despair and ...
Let’s talk about another music genre that is closely related to Gothic Metal: Black metal. One Gothic Metal band who often uses Black metal influences, is Moonspell. As you can hear in their song Opium, the overall sound is a bit more on the heavy side. Compared to Doom-influenced Gothic Metal, it’s much faster and has more of a shrieking sound.
We don’t need every song to be sung in English, do we? Although this list is already quite international, it can use a bit more variation when it comes to speech. So for our final entry, here’s one of the very few Gothic Metal bands who stick to their native language (in this case, German): Lacrimosa with Sapphire. We’ve explored a lot of different...
May 21, 2021 · Goth can be many things – from a fashion trend to a way of life – but these are the bands the embody the sound all things gothic, whether they want to or not…
Goth metal fuses the bleak, icy atmospherics of goth rock with the loud guitars and aggression of heavy metal, finding the middle ground between the two styles in a melodramatic sense of theater and lyrical obsessions with religion and horror.
