Umbra Nihil

Nightly Gale are a Polish 'suicidal'/experimental doom metal band from Zabrze, formed in January 1996 and still releasing as of their 2008 album Imprint. Founder Slawek Pyrzyk's slow, melancholic doom foundation has been layered over the years with second-vocalist Waldemar Sagan's black metal screams and, notably, live saxophone passages that reviewers single out as an unusually organic touch for the genre. Their debut ...and Jesus Wept (2001) came out on Pagan Records, and Imprint (2008) pushed the format further into a single continuous 70-minute piece.

Beneath the Sod is the solo funeral/industrial doom project of Irish musician Ray Keenaghan (Wreck of the Hesperus), formed 2017. Releases include Circling the Drain (2017, Fort Evil Fruit), the split cassette Transmorphic Eye (2018, with Crypticum), and a self-titled 2021 EP on Cursed Monk Records described as harsh, synth-laced industrial doom metal with guest vocals from Richard Carson.

Ecuadorian experimental collective from Guayaquil ('Psychedelic-Noise-Arkestra') led by multi-instrumentalist José Francisco Ycaza (aka Esquizoide 0nírico), billed 'Arkestra Director' in the Sun Ra tradition. Their 2019 album Nodvs Gordivs (Pensador Records) is a long-form concept piece weaving Castro, Alexander the Great and the Sabazios cult into a psychedelic doom/sludge/krautrock ritual built from extended pieces of noise, orchestral texture and heavy riffing.

Om is an American stoner/doom drone band formed in San Francisco in 2003 by bassist-vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius, previously the rhythm section of Sleep. The band is known for droning, bass-driven, meditative songs steeped in spirituality and mysticism, a marked departure from Sleep's Black Sabbath-rooted sound. After Hakius departed in 2008, Emil Amos (of Grails) joined on drums, and the group's acclaimed fifth album Advaitic Songs was released by Drag City in 2012.

Goatsnake is an American stoner/doom metal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1996 after the dissolution of The Obsessed, whose rhythm section of bassist Guy Pinhas and drummer Greg Rogers teamed with guitarist Greg Anderson (also of Sunn O))), Burning Witch, and Thorr's Hammer) and vocalist Pete Stahl. Known for a soulful, bluesy take on low-and-slow doom, they released their debut album '1' in 1999. After breaking up in 2001 they later reunited, issuing the album Black Age Blues on Southern Lord Recordings in 2015.

Burning Witch was an American doom/sludge metal band formed on Capitol Hill in Seattle in early 1995 from the ashes of the doom/death band Thorr's Hammer, active until 1998. Known for extremely slow tempos, dense feedback and Edgy 59's alternately mournful and tortured vocals, the group is best remembered as a formative pre-Sunn O))) project for guitarist Stephen O'Malley. Their EP recordings were gathered on the compilation Crippled Lucifer, released in 1998 on Southern Lord Records, the label O'Malley co-founded with fellow Seattle musician Greg Anderson.

A Burlington, Vermont project that began as epic doom metal (lyrics about cartoons and archaeology) before pivoting into what it now calls 'Doom Cabaret' — metal-influenced piano ballads that the band itself likens to 'Voltaire after listening to Candlemass and bingewatching old cartoons.' The Johnsonian Demos blends doom/thrash/power metal roots with free improvisation and dark ambient textures, landing somewhere between symphonic doom and cabaret songcraft.

Giant Squid are an American post-metal and progressive/doom band formed in Sacramento, California in 2002 and led by Aaron Gregory, known for oceanic and marine-biology concept records including Metridium Fields (2006) and The Ichthyologist (2009), released via labels including Translation Loss. Cellist and vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz, of Amber Asylum and Grayceon fame, joined the band in January 2007, deepening its chamber-tinged heaviness. The band shares members and a 2007 split 7-inch, 'Sutter's Fort,' with fellow Bay Area group Grayceon.

Squalus are an avant-garde sludge/doom quartet from Pacifica, California, formed in 2015 by Aaron Gregory, Zack Farwell, Andy Southard and Bryan Beeson -- all former members of Giant Squid -- after that band went on hiatus. Rejecting guitar entirely in favor of two basses, keyboards, and samples, the band built its debut album The Great Fish... (2017, Translation Loss Records) as a song-cycle retelling of Jaws with lyrics spliced from Peter Benchley's novel. They followed with the split LP Mass and Power alongside Shadow Limb (2018, Translation Loss Records).

Khanate was an American drone/extreme doom supergroup formed in New York in 2000 by guitarist Stephen O'Malley and bassist James Plotkin, with vocalist Alan Dubin and drummer Tim Wyskida. Their glacial music paired extremely slow tempos and harsh layers of feedback with Dubin's torturous shrieking, debuting with a self-titled album on Southern Lord Records in 2001. The band split in 2006 before a surprise return with the album To Be Cruel, released via Sacred Bones Records in 2023.