Witch Mountain, Blood Ceremony and Castle are playing the Hard Luck bar TONITE!!!, which brings me to the conclusion of this list.
1. Blood Ceremony
Blame the Toronto media bias if you must, but Blood Ceremony are number one in my books. They may not be the most proficient or technically gifted band on this list–but they’re the only one I’ve seen more times than I can remember. I caught ‘em for the first time back in August ’06, and was immediately floored by their morbid take on traditional doom. The mistress of ceremonies is one Alia O’Brien, who provides flute trills and organ shrills while also adding her haunting voice to the proceedings. To this day, their self-titled debut is a personal favourite, and while followup effort Living with the Ancients saw the band move slightly away from Sabbathian doom towards more progressive territory, it has grown on me as well. There are few local bands whose every gig I mark on my calendar nowadays, but BC is definitely one of them–when they’re not off touring Europe, that is. For the record, I’ve also seen ‘em play Montreal and Ottawa; in fact, here are some pics I took of their recent performance at All That’s Heavy II in the nation’s capital.
Your lack of Dark Castle and Bloody Panda is peculiar. Good choices otherwise, though.
Not a fan of drone, and Dark Castle didn’t impress me much when they opened for YOB. I tried to keep this list focused on true doom or stoner doom, although there were a couple times when I went off script (Kylesa, Mares of Thrace). Thanks, though.