Capricorn - Doom Metal
Birthed from Black Sabbath’s eponymous song in 1969, doom metal is the grandfather of all heavy metal genres. Inspired by bassist Geezer Butler’s eerie experience of waking to see a looming shadow at the end of his bed, Ozzy Osbourne captured the feeling of impending doom with these hauntingly brief lines…
Of Horns, Hooves, and Heavy Riffs
Birthed from Black Sabbath’s eponymous song in 1969, doom metal is the grandfather of all heavy metal genres. Inspired by bassist Geezer Butler’s eerie experience of waking to see a looming shadow at the end of his bed, Ozzy Osbourne captured the feeling of impending doom with these hauntingly brief lines:
“What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me
Turn ‘round quick and start to run
Find out I’m the chosen one
Oh, no!”
In turn, guitarist Tony Iommi’s snarling riff gave life to doom metal's signature low, slow, loud sound. All metal subgenres find their niche in some kind of extremity, taking a musical element and ramping up its intensity to the Nth degree. Well, doom metal is extremely slow. The legendary Sleep song Dopesmoker clocks in at over an hour long! Eschewing the shredding antics of thrash or death, doom metal finds its apotheosis in soul-crushingly heavy riffs played on down-tuned guitars at exhaustingly slow tempos accompanied by lyrical themes like despair, depression, damnation, and grief. It revels in fear, terror, and the Lovecraftian cosmic horror of being slain by the sublimely incomprehensible.
Naturally, doom metal is the purview of Saturn, the Greater Malefic, whose malevolence was said to come from being excessively cold and dry. Bounded by rings of rock and ice, Saturn stands for that which restricts, opposes, and oppresses. While his pedagogy is cruel, Saturn can teach valuable lessons like discipline, maturity, and control. He imposes the laws of impermanence, death, and decay. Because he governs lines and limits, Saturn is the patron of the excluded: outcasts, the isolated, and the marginalized. Prior to Neptune’s discovery and subsequent acquisition of mystical significations, Saturn governed ascetics, occultists, hermits, and states of intoxication. When considering the black monastic habits worn by bands like Sunn 0))), dark phantasmagoria of Stoner Doom, and mournful dirges of Funeral Doom, it's easy to see why Saturn is Doom metal’s patron.
Saturn - The Greater Malefic
According to the Hellenistic planetary rulership scheme, Saturn has two domiciles or homes. Doom aligns most with Saturn's cardinal, Earthy, nocturnal domicile of Capricorn. The season of the Goat begins at Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and longest night. Amidst the cold, accumulating snow, darkness reigns supreme. Harsh conditions drive people inside to huddle around fires. They pray their harvest lasts until the spring thaws, while outside howl the winter winds and wolves. It is these grim conditions that give birth to the melancholy and misery, depression and deprivation encapsulated by Doom.
So what makes Capricorn the province of Doom metal? Besides the panoply of goats appearing in band names and album artwork, my interpretation stems from the sign’s mode, element, and gender. Capricorn is a cardinal sign, meaning it begins and births. Capricorn season initiates Winter and marks the point in the year when the sun begins its slow, arduous ascent back toward the pole star. Doom metal itself was inceptional; its unholy anthem “Black Sabbath” is the seed from which all heavy metal blossomed.
Elementally, Capricorn is Earthy, meaning concrete, material, and tangible. As first of the Earth signs, Capricorn speaks to primordial, physical structures. These foundations of the Earth can be seen in rugged mountains where goats climb and play. Qualitatively, Earth feels weighty and dense. There is an austere gravitas to Capricorn. This density is expressed in the painfully heavy riffs so characteristic of Doom. With a lethargic tempo reminiscent of trudging, the subgenre’s mythological imagery often features long arduous journeys. Pilgrims bearing burdensome loads march through harsh landscapes to a slow and steady metronome. Oftentimes, something obsidian and monolithic looms in the distance, inspiring numinous dread.
The Foreboding Terrain of Capricorn
Finally, Capricorn is considered a feminine sign. Although gendered terms were baked into astrology’s beginnings, they have diminishing utility in the 21st century. We might think of masculine and feminine instead in terms of Yin and Yang, active and receptive, or diurnal and nocturnal. Of these binaries, I find diurnal vs. nocturnal the most useful as its metaphorical foundation is light, something whose variegating quality we all experience throughout the solar year. Consider then the enfolding, all-consuming power of a velvet black night in the depths of winter when the natural world appears most unforgiving. Doom metal artists often pen hymns to the Void, the philosophical personification of nothingness. These songs make homage to the idea that the deep well of emptiness within us all is truly the Ground of All Being and is experienced and accessed only through negation. Therefore lack, absence, and loss beget bitter truth.
As a love letter to Saturn and my favorite subgenre, you can find a Spotify playlist below filled with some of my favorite Doom metal tracks. It’s an eclectic mix, including classics from Doom’s forebears such as St. Vitus, Pentagram, and Trouble as well as contemporary favorites like Thou, Pallbearer, and SubRosa. Generally, the mix edges more toward Stoner Doom than Drone, Epic, or Sludge simply because the cannabis-infused, bluesy grooves of the genre resonate most with my own heart.