I’ve said it more than once, but Italy produces some killer Doom Metal bands. Okay, I might have said Occult Doom Metal bands, but who pays attention to me anyway? On June 6, 2025, Italian Stoner Doom metalists AGANOOR released their debut album, Doomerism, via My Kingdom Music and Blood Rock Records. Six tracks, 39 minutes and 23 seconds of pure Doom bliss straight outta Rome.  

It's hard to believe this is the first album from AGANOOR—they sound like seasoned veterans of the forever metal psychic wars. From the intro riff of “Bury My Soul” to the final strains of “Mind Shadowing,” this is classic Doom metal done up right. And the cool thing about this band is that although people will compare them to any number of current and past Doom Metal bands, they are not template of any one of them. Sure, the markers of the subgenre are all there—down-tuned, funereal slow-brew riffs coupled with dark-as-your-soul themes and moody, explorative rhythms—but AGANOOR does it their own way. Right when you think you have a track figured out, they veer down some dark tangent and off you go exploring some shadowy groove.

Opening track “Bury My Soul” is a perfect mix of Stoner groove and Doom aesthetic. Stephen Drive bends his bass like it personally hurt him, and Dan Ghostrider’s vocals weaves through that liminal space right between clean and guttural. Anth Maelstrom’s solo on this track is a psych wet dream. Meanwhile, Alex Leonox reigns them all in with a boots-of-lead tempo. All that is to say, this is a banger of track. Perfect intro to the album and while each of the following tracks expand into different spaces, “Bury My Soul” sets some high expectation for the entire set.  

Next up is “Icarus,” a yearning song dripping of painful remorse. Okay, I haven’t actually seen the lyrics, but it sounds that way to me. This track builds up to massive crescendo about three-quarters of the way in and then drifts into a foggy blues trip. That trip, however, gets blasted away by, wait for it, machine gun riffs. Like I said, lots of twists to this album. One of my favorites, this one.   

While the first two tracks come at you like a pissed off Xenomorph, the next two tracks “Nadir” and “Emerald Lake” get way into the swamplands. The final two tracks are a mix of everything that came before—heavy and hard rolled together with moody and contemplative. “Mortal Sin” features a breakdown that’s simply visceral. Just mean and nasty as it can get. “Mind Shadowing,” for its part as the closing track has a sinister vibe and stalker’s cadence that sticks with you long after the album ends.

I should also mention the cover art by Mirkow Gastow. Green and black landscape with a lone tree and lone deer against a backdrop of maybe the moon or maybe some other planet which itself is layered against a backdrop of a grayscale cosmos. Makes you wonder, is this some occult other-side-of-the-veil shit; just an idyllic mountainside scene—but in green; or some cosmic trippy landscape. I’m up for option one.

Final comments. Not sure where the band’s name comes from. Maybe the Italian poet Vittoria Aganoor. If you’re wondering why I might believe a Doom metal band would name themselves after a poet, just go read her poem “Fear” or consider the fact that her heartbroken husband committed suicide next to her corpse. I mean, that’s some melancholic devotion. Or maybe it's just one of the band members' actual surname. At any rate, wherever they got their name from, AGANOOR has put out a stunning debut.