1. Life is too short to experience all that is good.
2. Life is too long to enjoy living.
3. Every day is a funeral.
4. Do not wear anything but flat black clothes and combat boots.
5. Do not smile
6. Do not laugh.
7. Death Doom is not slow Death Metal, unless you think it is.
8. Doom Metal is not Death Metal with a violin.
9. No matter what anyone says, that vocalist is not the Cookie Monster.
10. I said "No laughing!!!"
11. No matter what anyone says, you're not a Goth.
12. While a black teddy bear with a broken heart hanging from a noose on your windshield may very well symbolize your tortured inner nature, it's not very metal.
13. It is acceptable to listen to non-doomy music if you play it at 1/4 of its normal tempo.
14. You may complain about an album's production unless it is a Thergothon release.
15. You will own Thergothon's 'Stream From The Heavens', but never listen to it because of the bad sound quality.
16. Spend years looking for that extremly rare limited to 500 copies vinyl only release that you must own, then listen to it twice in your lifetime.
17. You must never admit to liking a "fast part" on a doom CD, unless it is Disembowelment.
18. Watch incomprehensible cult movies with no plot, storyline or anything remotely interesting happening because "it's doomy!".
19. You can make fun of Nazis unless the said Nazi is Fucked up Mad Max. Then you can overlook his beliefs because his "music was good".
20. Album covers must contain one of the following: Ruins, Spirits in agony, A cemetary sculpture of an angel, or A pretty painting of heaven...
21. But you're not a Goth!
22. As a Doomster, you're too apathetic to engage in silly music genre debates.
23. Unless someone calls you Gothic, then it's on.
24. Always let your goat listen first to a new CD, so she may consider if it's good or bad for you.
25. Kitty cats are not appropriate pets unless they're black and depressed.
26. You must appreciate folk polka metal because polka is dark, emotional and "...really doomier than Serenades when you think about it."
27. Consider yourself open-minded about music.
28. Consider all other metal narrow-minded, especially "True Norwegian Black Metal!"
29. Ignore the contradiction of the above two rules.
30. If you're a traditional doom fan, you must complain endlessly about My Dying Bride, and call all the non-trad fans "Gothic Fags." Also complain about Droning doom because it's not music.
31. If you're a Sludge Doom fan moan that Trad doom is really Heavy Rock.
32. If you're a Stoner Doom Fan, you are not paranoid. They are all out to get you.
33. If you're a Doom/Death fan, you must complain endlessly about Droning Doom because it's even slower and more boring than what you listen to. Also complain about trad-doom because half the vocalists sound like they've been castrated.
34. If you're a fan of Droning Doom, you're probably too busy zoning on the droning to be reading this list, or to even care.
35. Remember Rule 22. You do not engage in silly music genre debates.
36. If someone says Doom-Metal is a mix between Death-Metal and Gothic-Metal, kick him in the nuts.
37. Unless you're fixated on an Earth CD at the time, then you probably didn't hear a word he just said.
38. If you find yourself describing your favourite piece of music as "Joyful," "A bright ray of sunshine," or "the super happy fun song," there's a slight chance that it's not Doom.
39. Doom Reviews containing descriptions such as "Crushing," "Monolithic," "Depressive," and "Suicidal" are good reviews... and yes, these are complimentary terms!
40. If you feel down, then listen to some truly soul crushing, suicidal doom to cheer you up.
41. If you are Doom, you are probably from Finland or Yorkshire.
42. Even if you're not Doom, if you're from Finland, you're probably still a miserable bastard.
43. No matter how slow you play, you can always play slower.
44. If there are more than 30 beats per minute, the music is too fast.
45. If you play anything above 30 bpm, you are probably Pop music, unless you are Disembowelment.
46. If Skepticism suddenly decides to play something above 30 bpm, then we will make an exception for them too, but this is very unlikely.
47. Make sure to include such words as "Emptiness," "Dying," "Solitude," "Cold," "Night," "Despair," "Demon," "Caress," "Darkness," and "Shadows" in your band name, song titles, and lyrics. Arrange them in faux poetic ways such as "In the Cold Demon's Caress, I lay Dying," "Dark Emptiness," "In Demonic Shadows, I Despair." "Empty Shadows of Death," and one that every True Doomster should relate to: "Nights of Solitude."
48. Only the first two albums of a band are True™ doom.
49. Disband after the first album or mini-cd and you're CULT!
50. Never let your audience know if your new song is an instrumental or not until you really have to. Give them at least 3 minutes to guess how the song will turn out.
51. Record 6 songs that span over the length of 2 full CDs. Obviously intro's, outro's and short intermezzo's (on both disks) are included in the song count.
52. You must make fun of Black Metal musicians taking pictures in the woods. Promptly afterwards you will have your band-mate follow you into a thicket by the local cemetery with a 35mm camera for "band shots".
53. True™ doom lyrical content must include references to: a relative, spouse, fiancée or pet dying, or abstract explorations of getting dumped by your girlfriend.
54. If you reference all of the above in a single song, you qualify for "Sooper Dooper Pooper Scooper True Cult Doom" status. An example of this would be: "Rover has passed into the frozen wastes of Kadath, and my heart has been rent from my ribcage by thee, temptress bitch."
55. There have to be at least 3 different songs with the same name in your repertoire. (You may put a number after it if you want, such as "Rover, My Temptress Bitch MXVIII.")
56. While practicing your death metal "Cookie Monster" vocals, resist the temptation to write songs about how much the chocolate chips long to join the sugary dough for one last dip into the pond of milk white purity before being thrown into the gaping maw of a ravenous muppet.
57. Most importantly, and I can't stress this enough: Be from Finland!
58. A Funeral Doom riff should last a minimum of 15 seconds, and repeat itself for at least 16 minutes.
59. You know you are a funeral doomster when you find yourself saying, "Black Sabbath just play too fast."
60. If you're a traditional doomster, rip off Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Obsessed, Pagan Altar and Pentagram, then claim any similarity is pure coincidence.
61. Mourn the loss of Paradise Lost a once great band.
62. Violinists are not necessarily gay.
63. The mark of good funeral doom is whether you can get a beer from the fridge in the time between two snare hits.
64. True doomsters are too depressed to go to band practice.
65. Use Æ in your song titles
66. Doomsters are not kvlt, tr00, gr1m or pretentious.
67. Hide your Darkthrone records when one of your doomed mates visits.
68. Any song shorter than 8 minutes is an 'Intro'.
69. Doom bands should not be popular, unless they're disbanded, then they are CULT.
70. Don't go out, unless the weather's cold and dreary.
71. Funerals are your favourite pastime.
72. State explicitly that doom bands are interesting and varied, then record a song with one riff the entire 20minutes of the track
73. If you are no longer doom, say you've "progressed" and deny that any previous doom recording even existed.
74. Sing along in the bath to your favourite doom band, then deny it because your too "depressed" to sing to yourself in the bath
75. Doomsters listen to a variety of music, are able to appreciate many music forms, and laugh at the shit non-doomsters listen to.
76. All doom bands are pioneering even if they sounds like every other doom band
77. Keep tours to a minimum, if people want to see you they have to be cult enough to travel at least 20,000miles
78. If more than 20 people ever come to one of your shows, you have to break up or else you're a sell-out
79. Name your demos and albums with strange titles like "Cthulghy Hyoyrto Skyththte", or "Jhihhee Eliidhhddeenn Fffffhhhhttthjhjuuuuu". By doing this, your band will look really avant garde, progressive and doom.
80. Be tired and indifferent during interviews. Your answers should contain at least 10 long-structured sentences. Otherwise, you are just a punk rock prick.
81. Doom musicians don't move at gigs. If they move, they are not doom.
82. Same applies to the audience.
83. Do not update your band's website.
84. If your fellow-band members are manic-depressive, make sure you quit before they reach the manic phase!
85. Never respond to e-mails, especially if they are asking to buy your CD.
86. Don't release any of your tracks on the internet, so people can't find out how you sound. And when do finally release your album, release it in an obscure label from Australia that refuses to distribute any of the 500 printed copies.
87. If possible, do not release anything when you're band is still together. After you're disbanded release your abominable rehearsal tapes and sell them with outrageous prices.
88. Artwork must contain pink or purple!
89. Make really happy music and sing about always looking on the bright side of life... Eric Idle is doom?… Life's a bowl of shit, when you look at it!
90. If someone can recognize one of your band members in a picture, you are not doom.
91. Do not betray your favourite band by wearing one of their T-Shirts. If someone sees it and listens to them, they will become popular and hence commercial sell-out shit.
92. Re-re-re-re-release your demo on tape or vinyl, but not on cd, and make sure no one ever will be able to buy it
93. You know when you are listening to doom when you're out cycling and old ladies walk past you.
94. You know when you are listening to doom when that snail jumps out in front of you.
95. The mark of a good Funeral Doom album is to put it on, go to sleep and find it's still playing when you wake up.
96. Make sure your booklet don't contain lyrics or information of any sort.
97. Doom should sound like being alone, naked, with no food, or water, in the middle of a terrible blizzard, with a lot of hatred and pain in your heart, while being on drugs. If it doesn't go see a doctor of doom.
98. Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I want to be, pony trekking or camping, or just watching TV. Finland, Finland, Finland, it's the country for me!
99. Always keep the curtains closed, use candles is you must have light.
100. Your first breath is the beginning of your death.
101. Go drown yourself in a stream of mourn.
102. Never let anybody else contribute to a list of Doom Rules
103. Life is full of suffering, a seemingly endless path in the blackest darkness imaginable, which stops suddenly and you fall into even blacker nothingness
104. Emptiness rules
105. Skepticism is spelt with a 'K'
106. Happiness is a worthless electrical illusion created by pointless peasants
107. Time is what happens between mistakes
108. Life is what happens to you if you don't die soon enough, but don't panic, life is terminal.
109. Nothing is the answer to everything
110. People are cannibals who eat themselves in order to sustain themselves
111. Doom is a state of mind, a dark blue, blanket grey, black state of mind
112. You are born, you chug alone on rails, you pause at stations to let people on and off and you terminate; and there is nothing you can do about it… and that is the shape of despair.
113. Life is a fruitless search for a answer that doesn't exist that seems to last longer than a Doom song but is actually over in a flash
114. Life is loneliness in a world of 6 billion people.
115. In all things, be alone.
116. Doomsters like to moan about life
117. Everything is bullshit and fake, and your dreams are insignificant.
118. Take each day at a time and discard yesterday's burdens or they will crush you when you add them to tomorrows
119. Life is a sexually transmitted disease
120. Life is pop-up hell
121. Life... don't talk to me about life
122. Life is a JOKE... remember, NO LAUGHING!!
123. Nothing is real
124. Ambition is like smoking face down in bed
125. Happiness is keeping busy and not thinking too much
126. Happiness is about being happy that you're not sad about being unhappy.
127. The music business is a monkey's arse.
128. Judge a person by their record collection.
129. There is no problem that cannot be solved by real ale
130. Love is a poisoned chalice and hate is the antidote
131. Life is like a chocolate box, some do without, others have plenty. It sticks in my throat, my stomach's in knots, while your box is so full, mine's perpetually empty
132. Hell is other people
133. A sunset is only electromagnetic radiation whose photons register in you eye sensors. Beauty is an illusion invented by postcard salesmen
134. Fail young, fail often
135. Avoid moments of clarity
136. Look forward to your last breath and the pleasure of that final disappointment and say "Is that all there is? If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing, let's break out the booze and have a ball, if that's all there is".
137. Never brush your teeth with a Noothgrush
138. Living is pointless, death is pointless, talking to others is pointless, so what's my point?
139. Life is like a bookcase and happiness is candy on the top shelf and you're a four year old who can't reach. Just don't be surprised when the whole lot crashes down on you when you climb up to reach it and the candy falls further out of reach… and then you die.
140. Be content to vanish into nothingness when you die for no show, however good, could conceivably be good forever
141. Reality is an internal representation, so don't worry about it
142. Worry about your next meal instead of enjoying the one you have.
143. In all things be drunk.
144. Doomsters don't take 'Speed', they take 'Slow'
145. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
146. Life is a 100 year mortgage that you can't afford the payments on.
147. When your creativity have dried up and shrivelled like an old prune, sign up with Century Media and abandon Doom altogether and go MTV friendly, but still cite My Dying Bride as one of your major influences.
148. Insisting your latest album is the bleakest, and most haunting your band has ever recorded, even if it's your debut.
149. Drone doomsters do go OooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNnnn... nnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnNNNNNN... NNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, sometimes.
150. Mournful Congregation would like to thank depression, pain, death, suicide, distain, misery, sadness, gloom dejection, melancholia, desolation, despondency, discouragement, downheartedness, grief, suffering distress, anguish, torture, agony, torment woe, sorrow, Wretchedness, unhappiness, affliction, displeasure, misfortune, lamentation, mourning, solitude, solemnity and Doom.... and so should you.
151. Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters.
152. Have at least one goat-related song on your new album
153. If you are from England become sad and embittered that no-one gives two fucks about you, your band or your label, because in England nobody care about anything except their own little stash, nobody that is except those 30 people odd people who do turn up to see you play, and they are worth more than a stadium full of fair weather trend following wankers.
154. If half the audience hasn't left out of frustration before you've finished your first note, then you're playing too fast.
155. Trad Doom bands have to have shit singers, it's the law.
156. No one else understands why a 2 note song is good, but you don't care.
157. Impaled Nazarene are Doom because of the shear number of goats involved.
158. Make sure your drummer's not awake during gigs. After the gig, wake him up and tell him he played fantastic.
159. Look very bored during parties. If anyone asks, say you amuse yourself.
160. Debuts are good. Follow-ups are repetition and sell-out.
161. Make fun of punks. remember though, you are open-minded.
162. Trust me, your last gig was aweful.
163. Blame others for your lack of success if success is what you seek (you know who you are)
164. Make sure at least one member of your band owns a record label otherwise you'll never release anything other than CDRs.
165. If no one in your bands owns a record label then write rave reviews of the bands that do.
166. Don't mention Lee Dorian's singing ability. Remember, he owns a record label.
167. "The end will come for all these lies, life is worthless, life will die, there's no need to cry" --Douglas P.
168. Funeral Doomsters: Make sure you have a tuner connected to your guitar, it's bound to get out of tune between strikes.
169. Did the lights just go out or was that the night?
170. Expect the term 'Score' to mean one thing to a Funeral Doomster and something completely different to a Stoner Doomster.
171. Expect the phrase "Is there another key?" to mean one thing to a Death Doomster and something completely different to a Stoner Doomster.
172. The glass is half empty dummy.
173. Don't cry into your beer, it will water it down and make it taste salty.
174. Doom SHALL rise.
175. Doom or be doomed.
176. Say after me... "I will stay on this revolving globe of outrage until it breaks wind and collapses on itself".
177. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
178. Pour your heart and soul into designing a flyer, get them printed, then don't post them. It's connected with rule 91... Flyers = Sellout... remember, no one must know.
179. Always outnumber your audience in case they beat you up after the gig and nick your equipment
180. Tell everyone that your bandmembers are all 100% True Doom, even if the drummer's secretly into Trash, the guitarist's a closet Malmsteen fan and the bassplayer's so doped up he thinks he a Prog Rocker.
181. You can be in as many bands as you like, but just make sure that they all play the same stage on the same night, and ideally, sound exactly the same.
182. Get a girlfriend...she will double the audience!
183. Amaze your audience and get a full lineup together.
184. To be classified True™ doom you must obtain a signed certificate of authentication from Wino.
185. Any sign of progression or deviation from the True™ Doom path will result in debagging and expulsion from the "Circle Of True Doom"™. Disgraced band member's names will be struck from the "Children of Doom"™ register and Wino certification withdrawn.
186. The Swans are doom.
187. Doom is Rage without the aggression.
188. Don't try and headbang to Funeral Doom, you'll look ridiculous.
189. Rather than headbanging and looking amazingly ridiculous, prepare for your next funeral metal gig by avoiding sex, or touching your wankshaft for a couple of weeks, let your balls swell up to the size of melons, then on the night, drop your trousers and unleash you're awe inspiringly large testicles... arch your back... spread your legs wide... and sway them to and fro in time to the mega slow metal thereby avoiding any possibly headbanging embarrasing situation.
190. There is pleasure in grief.
191. Doom is the sound of inevitablility.
192. Don't pay by the hour for rehearsal space if you intend running through a few 'Until Death Overtakes Me' numbers.
193. The doomed mind is a terrible thing to taste so spice it up with some fava beans and a nice chianti
194. Doomed solo composers must have Funeral, Drone and Ambient projects and several combinations thereof on the go at any one time to be taken seriously.
195. Insist that all of these projects are different, even if they sound the same.
196. Claim you know the singer of My Dying Bride, or were present in the studio when they recorded 'Turn Loose the Swans'.