I still hope to have plenty more input from you guys (and gals!) here on the forum about this subject, but I think I'll add my two cents in now, and you guys take it from there.....
ND started out in the early 90s as very much a doom metal band, or doom/death band or whatever you want to call it. The objective was to play music that was mostly slow and sloth-like, with epic female vocals, pained poetic male vocals, layered over incredibly heavy down tuned guitars and slow drumbeats. While we haven't completely strayed from this altogether, we've certainly evolved and changed into something that, in my opinion, bares little resemblance to the "Amid..." era of ND. We still have our slow epic moments (i.e. "Dark Fields...", "Within My Flesh", etc.) but when writing songs like "Not The Strong", "Lost In A Day", "In The Absence of Grace", and so on, we've felt that the label of "doom" just didn't apply whatsoever to the feel and sound of these songs. Especially in regards to the upcoming cd, again it does have it's doom-like moments, but I just couldn't label it as doom with clear conscience. Doom, to me, are bands like Candlemass and Trouble, St. Vitus, Sleep, etc., and doom/death would be My Dying Bride, early Anathema, and so on...At this point I think we have very little in common with any of the bands mentioned, though they all contributed to an initial influence and inspiration back in the day, and we still very much enjoy all of these bands from a listeners standpoint.
My reasoning for posting this thread was because for a while now, I've read on this forum and others about how people seem to be very divided on whether or not we fit in or belong under the umbrella of the "doom scene". It seems we've fallen into that grey area where we're not clearly defined as any one thing, or in other words, we're not easily categorized. One person will label us as "doom" without any doubt or hesitation, and yet another person will say we're not "doom" by any stretch of the imagination. I was just curious as to what you guys here had to say about this.
Do we consider ourselves a doom band anymore? Speaking for myself only (I'll let Paul and Vito throw in their own two cents if they want), I can't say I really think of us as a doom band now. We have those elements in our sound, but they've been mixed with far too many other elements now that have little to do with doom metal/doom rock. I can't really figure out a "label" or category that our music could be thrown under, much like, in my opinion, bands like Edge of Sanity, Opeth, Katatonia, etc. are all hard to throw into one specific category, and all fall into that sort of "grey area"....and while we may not be as popular or as good as those bands mentioned, I have no problem whatsoever with being in the company of bands such as those!!
Anyhow, I just like to hear your thoughts on this stuff because it really does help us and it lets us know how people perceive things about ND compared with how we perceive them ourselves. With each new album and such, it gets harder to figure out just how to approach the marketing and everything, especially since it's general habit for people to want to know what "style" or "category" it falls under.
