Top 10 Best DSBM (Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal) Bands
DSBM (Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal) is a Metal sub-genre and a type of Black Metal. The main themes of DSBM songs are hate, death, misery, pain, sorrow and loneliness of human life. Listing the best bands of this genre.
Xasthur is a black metal and acoustic project of American musician Scott Conner, formed in 1995. Xasthur was perhaps the most notable black metal group from America. In 2010, Conner announced the end of Xasthur, after 8 black metal albums. However, in 2015, Conner revived Xasthur as an acoustic project. Since, he has released 1 studio album in 2016. I love his sadness - it is relieving to know I am not the only one in pain. I also take a huge inspiration from him to make my own DSMB music. great musician
xasthur is a perfect DSBM band. When you listen to xasthur, what do you feel?The pain, sadness and weakness? Yea, that's right. This perfect DSBM project is changed my life. I have one song where I cry every time when I hear to it, it is walker of a dissonant worlds. This song and the whole album (to violate to oblivious) is absolute masterpiece. Also the album subminal genocide is a perfect, the song malice hidden in a surealism is one of my favourite of this album, also prison of mirrors and beauty is only razor deep. The last album, subject to change is a bit weird but there are some good songs too, like holding yourself hostage and proven to be broken. But the important thing is it, that Xasthur is a perfect band and you should listen to this. (also sorry for my english)
It is a shame that Malefic has decided to stop with his project, but to me he has left a mark in depressive black metal history. With all his past great albums, I see his greatest works with Xasthur.
I must say that DSBM does not have to be completely black metal. So that's why I choose xasthur because you'll never hear anything like this again. Nocturnal Depression is also my favorite.
Everything with Thy Light is on point. The cacophonous distortion sounding almost as if shoegaze had had a child with black metal will chill you to your very soul every time. The anguished screaming sends a dark cloud over a song already lurking in the darkness.
Best DSBM, you really can feel the despair, the sadness, the hope fading... Best one! Also it has a very good vocal! "In the decaying reality, I am just a crawling worm in a world of lies"
Dsbm from Brazil. They are absolutely amazing. Powerful screams, Fantastic composer, they're music is impressive. They are everything.
I think they are the best. I can listen to thire songs all day. I like Nocturnal Depression too but I can't listen to them more that one hour but Thy Light there are something else.
Unique. The songs "Mental central dialog", "Myspys" and "Twitch" are among the most desperate, depressive, painfull inspiring guitar riffs/vocal/lyrics match in this Earth...
Really love this band. But I believe to get the full experience you kind of need to know Swedish.
After I listened to Lifelover for the first time, I was depressed for the rest of the day. enough said.
Most depressive, atmospherics, and ambientals songs I've ever heard in a DSBM band don't even know its not in the first place.
Silencer was a Swedish black metal band. Based in Stockholm, the group formed in 1995 and disbanded in 2001 releasing only one full-length album and a demo. I listened to Death - Pierce Me, and I am not kidding when I say that was the scariest, and worst songs I've heard in my life. I was sort of getting into it at first, but the first scream completely startled me, and it turned me away from this band immediately. Let's not forget how mentally insane Nattramn supposedly is/was. This is how I imagine prison is mentally.
Thank you, Nattramn and Leere. Each one of us have felt like this miserable at least once in our life. Silencer carries with their music with a perfect sense of melancholy after there's actually nothing left to destroy, all is dead and gone and so must you. All in all, Silencer is an essential DSBM legend band. However, listen to them with caution and keep sharp objects away from reach.
Nattramn's vocals are just smothered in pure agoby. With his shrieks of self-loathing; he's probably cutting himself in his music recording. Those guitar riffs cannot get any more depressing and sorrow-smothered. Want a DSBM band that has that horrible vibe to it? Silencer is your band. Check out the songs, "Sterile Nails and Thunderbowels" and "I Shall Lead, You Shall Follow". Pure Depression of music, right there.
I would choose Xasthur if I didn't know Silencer. Silencer is utterly better than any other DSBM band without a doubt, having far more memorable songs and having a much more unique vocal style than even Xasthur...Yes, I actually do like that voice.
Trist should be number 1. No band uses such easy dark riffs to create the most melancholic atmosphere. The songs are long and dark, mostly instrumental, sometimes pierced with painful screams (not like for example Lifelover which uses more piano and spoken words).
One of he dsbm out there. It should be at least top two in my opinion.
The only Trist song (even though there are no vocals or lyrics) that I have fallen in love with so far is "Vabeni Pokojne Tmy" and it is THOSE type of sounds that are straight up my alley and I really hope to find more music like this "song".
Best band great work
My descent into the creative agonizing vortex of DSBM began with Nocturnal Depression. I heard "... And Fall The February Snow" and was blown away by its heart-breaking, obscure beauty. I was hooked immediately and now of course, I'm a huge fan of a myriad of other dsbm artists. ColdWorld, Thy Light, Sterbend, Drowning The light, From The Sunset, Forest & Grief- these are bands I am very fond of, but Nocturnal Depression will always occupy the central chamber in this "dsbm junkie's" heart!
I remember the first time I've heard this type of songs, and the one who really catched me with that it was Nocturnal Depression. I don't even know how they aren't in the first place. I don't care 'bout the other band, but, If you're trying to listen for the first time DSBM, Nocturnal Depression is the band. Period.
Best DSBM band, great instrumental and ripping vocals, and such suicidal and melancholic lyrics. If you're new to DSBM, start with and, a great getaway for further exploring of DSBM.
This band is just.. More than awesome! I always listen to them when I come home. It's so relaxing and depressing.. It's just like Happy Days, it gives me chills.
While Shining (specifically, Nikolas) hates being labeled a part of the DSBM genre, they certainly have the depressive element in droves. Progressive in song writing, varied in vocal styles and completely sincere in delivery, The Eerie Cold era Shining is some of the best black metal I've ever listened to. Insanely emotional and mindblowingly creative, you HAVE to listen to Shining as a metal fan of any sort.
So bleak and atmospheric and depressing, Shining has to be the best DSBM artist out there. They use samples very effectively, and are just perfect. Admittedly, they have some not so good songs, but seriously, when they write a good song, they write a good song.
No other band has the same misanthropic hatred of humanity as Shining does. A band that truthful hates the world and I took to them as a perfect outlet to embrace the hatred we all have for human scum. All Hail Shining.
Shining were the originators of Suicidal Black Metal with Lifelover and Silencer, sort of a first wave DSBM.. The newer bands sound nothing like "DSBM" as good as some of them are its just different..
Their first album is just unbeatable, just more than a MasterPiece.. I highy recommend their first album if you are looking for true depressive music. Just sit alone at the night with your headphones on and start from the 1st song and then 2nd and so on to the last, then you will know how much amazing album it is.
The first band I really listened to knowing of the dsbm genre and I can't express how beautifully sad and raw emotion comes through in these songs. Brilliant work and beautiful music
No other band can capture what it feels like to be completely lost in anguish and pain.
Great band. Some really great material put out by these guys.
No matter, how this voting will end, because Psychonaut 4 is the most completed band in DSBM and, for me, even in the whole music world. It's not about the taste, it's about the fact. Maybe, the band's native country is one of the main reasons of their music being so real, so dark, painful, and even lovely, too. I think, Psychonaut 4's spirit is the Georgian spirit at the same time: fighting love, hate, self, others, and just fighting, but at the end not winning and not losing it. To say the truth, their music even has saved my life once, instead of making me worse.
Great dsbm band. Really shows the beauty of heavy instruments. If you want depressing this is what your looking for. Full of emotion... Great stuff.
I love Pyschonaut 4 a lot. They're one of my favorite DSBM bands ou there. Their music is melancholic and the vocalist's voice is truly heartbreaking. Their origin in Georgia adds to their mysterious charm.
Psychonaut 4 is probably the best DSBM there is. They have such sad guitar riffs combined with some of the most depressing lyrics I've read
As much as I like other DSBM bands, I'm In A Coffin are something really special. Just pure crushing despair, in the best way possible.
Corpses in living masks, enough said.
Just the best combinations of sounds. Guitar tone, vocals, lyrical theme, riffs, beautiful melodies and heavy depressive riffs that simultaneously bring you up while exploring the absurdity of life. Love it and cannot get enough.
A combination of really raw, passionate and sorrowful elements, though WoD can be both crushingly heavy and gently melodic. My favourite DSBM band by a long stretch.
The ironic thing about this band is it doesn't make me depressed. Far from it. There is so much beauty in the music.
Most of combined elements of depression is in their music! And so epic!
Drowning The Light plays a form of simple nihilist black metal that takes me to a dimension beyond the reality... This is because of the sound of the guitars, and the guitar melodies are dominating the music of this band. It's just that they are quite inventive in their riffs, with some more elements of doom metal to it.
Whenever you hear a DSBM band the main thing that attracts you to the music is its atmosphere. And in this case no other band can match this one!
An awesome band with some greatest works of depressive metal scene.
I like their intro's for almost every songs by them.
Leviathan is an ambient black metal solo project of Jef Whitehead (A.K.A. Wrest), formed in 1998. Wrest records and plays all instruments including vocals entirely on his own. Despite having early problems with the release of Massive Conspiracy Against All Life, it was released March 24, 2008 in Europe and March 25, 2008 in North America. Additionally, Wrest has collaborated with the band Sunn O))), and is an active member of the U.S. black metal supergroup Twilight. Leviathan has released 8 studio albums. Should be at least 2nd Leviathan's music is some of the best DSBM around! TThey even have a amazing split with Xasthur!
Definitely one of the most haunting black metal bands out there. Tentacles of Whorror is a perfect example.
Easily one of the best out there.
Just listen to The idiot sun... Best DBSM coming from the states probably even better than Xasthur
I was listening to this during my first, serious overdose.
This is the music of the damned, depressed and dying.
Why is Happy days on the 10th place?! It should be at least on the top 5, I can't rate this bands in order, but if I would make a top 10 list of dsbm bands it would have contain these following bands; Hypothermia, Lifelover, Apati, Psychonaut 4, Happy days, Gris, Nocturnal depression, Totalselfhatred, forgotten tomb and Austere. And not Xasthur, Xasthur is a very overrated band.
You just can feel the pain in these lyrics, they're just amazingly depressive in a sophisticated way.
I like the album Happiness stops here the most (especially songs Don't go, Letting go and Take me away).
They're one of the best bands I've ever listened to! Not that much howling sounds is what I like about them unlike a lot of the dsbm bands I keep finding but I'm not dissing the other! No one can replace Happy Days! Happy Days truly expresses sadness and depression more than any other band. :D
Cold, raw atmosphere.. Amazing band. I like the very raw aspects of the old albums, where you can feel all the hatred, sorrow in the vocals.
Miles ahead of any other band in the list. Showing that truly unique black metal can be created outside of what we think of as "the black metal world".
Sick, disturbing and depressive in the blackest way possible..
One of the best creative sounds that I've heard...
Waiting for their new material Sick stuff!
I first discovered ColdWorld a long time ago, and it didn't really click with me at first. At The time, this was prior to my love for black metal, and I wasn't used to such raw sounding music. But the more I listened to black metal, it just grew on me. I came back to this artist and listened again and again. Melancholie² soon became one of my favorite albums of all time, and I listen to it very often. TheStarsAreDeadNow is a great piece of work as well. I only wish he'd come out with a new album. ColdWorld creates such a unique atmosphere that I can't describe. My favorite song has to be either Cancer, or Hymn To Eternal Frost. I strongly recommend ColdWorld to anyone getting into DSBM.
ColdWorld first introduced me to DSBM with the song Dead Star, and I must say that it was the most beautiful and melancholic songs my ears have ever had the privilege of listening to. Its such a well orchestrated piece from the music to the vocals themselves. I have never felt such raw emotion as I have with that song, and that's what I think music should do in the first place. It was art in its purist form. So for that ColdWorld gets my vote.
I'm a one huge dsbm fan and ColdWorld is in the top of my favourite bands list. Such a unique and beautiful music and vocals. Simply ART. I can feel it through my body. It helped me in the hard times like a friend. For me it's on the top.
Perfect music for a cold winter day, when your life is just a glimpse of a dead society we are forced to live in. And even on a hot summer day, Coldworld's music is like a fresh breeze calming you down.
Wow, only 24th? Never thought they were that underrated! One of the first DSBM band I discovered with Lifelover and Psychonaut4, and my favorite one! Their tracks have the power to fill me with intense melancholy, and a weird feeling I can't even describe. Powerful.
Way underrated here. Should be in the top 5 for sure.
The best - as for me - powerful; lyrical; deep; perfect orchestration. Amen
This is the most authentic DSBM band I've ever listened to.. Every song talks about the real lives of Solitudo Cyfer and Thirteen Forever, about what they went through and their true emotions. They also give a lot of importance to issues every person has to deal with nowadays, like cyber bullism, mental issues, depression. Before listening to About Abortions, be aware that all the darkest feelings you've been trying to lock inside and to not show, will come out of your soul, destructive like a blow..
..I used to listen to their full length album "Substance of my psychosis" during my daily trip to the conservatory.. In those days in which outside the sun is bright, and all seems calm...while inside a storm devours your soul... And I know, it'll might be strange, but it always makes me feel better... It's like we're fighting together... Just to say how much About Abortions' Artists are precious and close to my heart..
People! These guys are SELF-TAUGHT! They compose the Music, write the lyrics, take care of the mixing work.. Solitudo Cyfer plays all of the songs off sheets... He can't write tabs because of his illness.. And what about Thirteen Forever.. He has several health problems, but this didn't stop him from playing different instruments and writing plenty of songs... What's Depressive Suicidal Black Metal? It's them.
I can't stop to listen their songs... About Abortions make me cry, but they give to me the strength, because when I listen all this love into certain composition I say to myself: "there is still something whereby is worth fighting...The music of this authentic and excellent band"...So... About Abortions forever!
I really am disappointed that this band is lower than I wanted it to be, I would've put these guys right above Woods of Desolation; But songs like Just For A Moment, This Dreadful Emptiness And Memories... It easily to see that these guys are extremely underrated.
DSBM Forever.
Underrated. I would like to see Austere at top ten because this band is a very talented group and makes sorrow and painful black metal better than most of the bands over it.
But Leviathan? Its not a DSBM band at all.
New Zealand is the last place I would expect to find truly miserable, authentic DSBM and yet here it is. I think they deserve a good ranking mostly off the back of "To Lay Like old Ashes"
I just listened to four of their "songs" and I immediately found it to be beautiful and very calming.
This is so wonderful DSBM! Why is this so underrated? Like their scream is so painful and pathetic. And their text are something else something … special.
The pure emotion Herr Morbid drains into his music is more than enough to be a strong contender.
Loves burial ground is now negative Megalomania!
Underrated! Needs to be in top ten!
Very depressive band from Croatia. Should be ranked higher.
Great vocal range on Gris's Foret album, with a lot of atmosphere, memorable riffs, and probably the best instrumental closing in DSBM history. The first time I heard this album, late at night, all alone in the dark, I nearly vomited, then I was depressed for days.
Gris are far the best Depressive black metal band, I would put Gris on second place since for me the best of them all was Miserere Luminis, so Gris second and Sombres Forêts 3rd. Basically here I am looking for number 4th. Xasthur and happy days are really good, but last albums needed more feeling.
Really emotional! More than the standard DSBM... Listening to Neurasthenie is like drowning into a desert of sadness!
No need to explain this, only hear the complete albums, under Gris or Misere Luminis, the music is a hymn to the depression ways...