Doom comes in many shapes. There’s doom that combines elements of stoner rock and then there is doom that touches the waters of atmospheric death and black metal, such as pioneered by bands like Katatonia, Paradise Lost, Evoken, and others. The release before us ‘Latitudes Of Sorrow’ (2025) brings together two bands who pull their origins from the same year that Doomed & Stoned began: 2013.

First up are three grey clouds from SHORES OF NULL. The Roman quintet brings harsh vocals and growls contrasted with clean, melodic crooning, and this is pitted against a dark ensemble of guitar, bass, and drums. It’s the ideal time of year for this kind of sound, as it matches the gloomy weather and provides a morose commentary on the state of human existence in contemporary times.

The band provides us with a walk-through of these tracks:

“An Easy Way”

It is the song that opens the split, and it is the most straightforward of all our songs in there. It has a dual nature: on the one hand, it’s quite catchy and memorable; on the other, it retains a deep inextinguishable darkness that leaves very little room for hope. Lyrically, it deals with depression and the inner struggle, as well as the temptation to surrender when everything seems utterly bleak. It is a reflection on human frailty that can lead to self-destruction.

“The White Wound”

This song was inspired by the avalanche that struck Hotel Rigopiano on January 18, 2017, in the Central Italian region of Abruzzo, near where I grew up. Imagine 120.000 tons of snow coming down from the mountain at the speed of 100 km/h and destroying everything on its way. 29 people died and only 11 survived. Musically, it blends doom-and-gloom passages with sudden blackened blastbeats, reflecting the unpredictable violence of nature. Lyrically, the song meditates on grief, loss, and the anger over the negligence that allowed the tragedy to happen, leaving lasting emotional scars.

“The Year Without Summer”

Browsing the web for catastrophic events, I came across an unprecedented volcanic eruption that took place in 1816 in modern-day Indonesia, which triggered devastating consequences. Sunlight was obscured, temperatures plummeted, and the world faced famine, floods, and epidemics. The song captures the fear, uncertainty, and despair of that time, exploring both the material devastation and the inner turmoil of those who lived through it. It’s a meditation on fragility, loss, and the inescapable force of nature. It features MN of Convocation of growls.

The CONVOCATION side is no slouch, and everything fans of the band love about the Finish crew is here. Furious roars that seem to manifest as pure flame, plaintive guitar strains, swelling rhythms, and bewildering atmosphere that will sweep you away into its aura. “Abaddon’s Shadow” is a watery behemoth like none other and you’ll dissipate right into the molecules of “The Empty Room.”

Latitudes Of Sorrow is deeply affecting and powerful through and through. Shores of Null and Convocation are ideally paired on this release and provide a good balance to this ship adrift in nihilistic fog. Releasing on cassette and CD, in addition to digital format, on Friday, November 21st via Everlasting Spew Records (get it here).

Stick it on a playlist with Enslaved, November’s Doom, Marche Funebre, and Endonomous, along with your favorite death and funeral doom bands.

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

Shores of Null stand out from their contemporaries with their ability to blend seemingly disparate elements into their sound, overwhelmingly heavy and soothing at the same time: blackened aggression stands alongside gothic-doom sections without either sounding out of place. Their music can be both melancholic and majestic, made of chorale-like guitar textures across the instrument’s entire range, sustained by a powerful rhythmic section and punctuated by a refined mixture of clean and growled vocals, along with extensive use of pleasing vocal harmonies which have become the band’s trademark through the years.

The Rome-based metal band has been an unwavering presence within the metal underground since their musical outset in 2013, churning out a series of impressive records: the melodic and somber Quiescence (Candlelight, 2014), the darker and more complex Black Drapes For Tomorrow (Candlelight/Spinefarm, 2017), and the ambitious Beyond The Shores (On Death And Dying) (Spikerot Records, 2020), a 38-minute long doom manifesto that sees guest appearances of the doom-titans Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow The Sun) and Thomas A.G. Jensen (Saturnus), along with the angelic voice of Elisabetta Marchetti (Inno).

Shores Of Null’s fourth album, The Loss Of Beauty, released in March 2023, was hailed as one of the best albums of the year within the genre. The band supported the release with an extensive EU/UK tour alongside Swallow The Sun, Draconian, and Avatarium, followed by standout performances at major festivals like Hellfest, Rock Imperium, and 70000 Tons Of Metal, among others, further solidifying their status as one of the rising forces in the metal scene.

In 2025, Shores of Null released Beauty over Europe, a powerful live album capturing the raw energy and emotional depth of their performances across the continent. The release serves as a testament to the band’s commanding stage presence and the resonance of their music with audiences worldwide. Looking ahead, the band is set to unveil Latitudes of Sorrow, a highly anticipated split album with Finnish funeral doom masters Convocation, promising a profound exploration of grief, atmosphere, and sonic weight.

Convocation started as a death metal project that later developed more close to darker doomish soundscapes, an outlet for really heavy and slow music with the will to experiment including synths, organs etc. This brought in 2017 the release of the 4 apocalyptic anthems comprised in “Scars Across”.

Three years later Convocation came back with the grandeur of “Ashes Coalesce”, an aural study of concepts encircling death while 2023 finally brought the third album “No Dawn For the Caliginous Night”, their most majestic and immersive release.

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

We’ve got a double-whammy for you today!   Celebrated Naples threesome NAGA are back with an exclusive track and are opening up for their first interview in a while.   If you’re new to the music of Lorenzo De Stefano (vocals/guitar), Emanuele Schember (bass), Dario Graziano (drums), I can’t think of a better description than their own: “…distortion, heaviness and nihilism to your ears.   No concept, no bullshits, no happiness, just sound anger and frustration to exorcize and reflect the greyness and despair of contemporary world.”   Now that’s something I can really raise my horns to.

Naga’s second album, ‘Inanimate’ (2016), is absolutely crushing (I raved about it in our quarterly ’Doom Around The World’).   Since its digital release, the band has been picked up by Everlasting Spew Records, which is releasing Inanimate on CD on March 25th (you can order it here).   For this special edition, NAGA has recorded a new single, which Doomed & Stoned is premiering today.

“Worm” opens with sparse textures.   A dissonant theme is introduced in single string plucks.   Soon, this erupts into a storm of cacophony.   The vocals are ravings of madness.   The dense atmosphere is one of opaque gloom, with sheets of rain pouring down from blackened, low-hanging clouds.   NAGA has orchestrated a mood of perfect doom, something that echoes entirely throughout Inanimate.

Give ear…

An Interview with NAGA
Frontman Lorenzo De Stefano

By Mari Knox

Doomed & Stoned Italy)

You started playing music together almost 15 years ago, in the beginning with a band called KTER (Kill The Easter Rabbit) and later, in 2013, you have founded Naga.   A long evolution that brought you good feedback since the debut album ‘Hēn’ (2014).   Your musical path is clearly the result of a strong partnership, something that’s hard to find. What does unite you? And what pushed you to start a band?

Basically, we are friends, kind of brothers, so it was completely natural to stick together and start up a band. We just share the same idea of music and life in general.  We met in Lyceum and, at that time, in Naples it was not that easy to find someone to share the same idea of music with, and still this is the case.   We both liked heavy stuff like Motörhead, Melvins, Slayer, and Electric Wizard so It was natural to come by and say “hey let’s start a band together.”   Basically, we feel music in the same way and that’s what unites us.   Then we found in Dario the natural 3rd part. I’ve played with many drummers, but Dario is the best one.   He shares our musical tastes, he’s a really clever and skilled musician, and above all a dear friend.   Now we have a clear idea of how our band has to sound, and that’s it.

Staying on topic, tell us how your songs come to life and what inspired the 'Inanimate.’   Is there a theme, a concept, to your song writing and how do the lyrics tie in?

We have to distinguish the musical composition and the lyrics.   The writing process is really natural like, “Hey guys, I have this riff. What do you think?”   A major impulse comes from Dario, who I always say is the best guitar player of the band.   He’s amazingly creative and our ideas really fit together.   Basically, we develop every song from a riff then we add parts to that.   I organize the structure and only at the end comes the vocal part.

I am the only writer of the lyrics since we started and, no, there’s no concept.   Maybe I’d like to write a concept in the future, but right now I’ve got no time.   The only remarkable theme of our lyrics is nihilism, but sometimes with a sort of bright side outside the Abyss.   I am mainly inspired by my personal life and my lectures.

'Inanimate’ was initially released by Lay Bare Recordings in 2016.   This year, you have chosen to reissue it whit a new track, “Worm,” on the thriving Italian label, Everlasting Spew Records.   How did you get in contact with them and with this repress, what kind of improvement you have brought to the album?

The EP sold out in just a month.   Lots of people asked us for a repress, so we just looked for someone interested in re-releasing our work.   Luckily, we found Everlasting Spew, thanks to our manager Tito Vespasiani, who set up everything with the label.   We have found in Giorgio from Everlasting a really helpful and cool guy.   The label is young and ambitious just like us, so we can grow up together.

Obviously, we want to reprint to be something special, so we recorded the new track “Worm” that sounds more death metal oriented, in order to increase the impact of the album, and decorated everything with a brand new master by the almighty James Plotkin.   You can’t go wrong with him.

Talk aboute bands or the records that have influenced you most as musicians and helped you develop your personal sound.   Are there other kinds of influences, like art and literature, as well?

Speaking of the bands or albums I love, I have to mention, of course, the first five LPs of Black Sabbath, 'Abbey Road’ by the Beatles, '1969’ by The Stooges, 'Hell Awaits’ by Slayer, 'Bleach/In Utero’ by Nirvana, Celtic Frost’s 'Morbid Tales,’ 'Transylvanian Hunger’ by Darkthrone, Carcass’ 'Necroticism,’ Sonic Youth and, naturally, Neurosis and all the doom, sludge, and black metal stuff.   We like also old Swedish death metal and some newer stuff from God City studios, Converge Nails, H.O.F. and so on.

But I have to say that no particular band has inspired us in our style.   We try to be personal and evolve by ourselves in shaping the sound and in the creative process.   Then, I really like to see live bands, most of all I am a music fan, and I like to capture here and there things I like in order to incorporate them in our music.   It’s an important part, I’d say pedagogical, in developing our style.

Apart from music, I read more than I play guitar, so of course my interests in philosophy and literature are a huge part of my life and give me inspiration for my lyrics and atmospheres.   I am not really into this occult or movie stuff, it’s just a cliché of our music genre.   I prefer to write about my personal life and something that really touches me or that has influenced my life path, hybridized sometimes with philosophical themes.   Nietzsche, Jünger, and Heidegger are a big influence for my lyrics, just like Sabbath are for my playing.   I am just tired of bands that sings about voodoo magic, weed, barbarians, and fantasy stuff.   It’s a little prosaic, or at least it does not work with us.   Instead, I like Neurosis or Amenra’s lyrical approach.   “Thrives,” “Hyele,” and “Worm” from Inanimate are a good example of that.

At the moment, you’re ready to play with Candlemass in northern Italy and this summer you will play in a big festival in Iceland (with a lot of important acts like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Neurosis, Sólstafir, Misþyrming and many more).   How do you feel about playing live? Are there any past gigs that you think have been more important than others, something you still remember as “special”?

Playing live is the most important part.   I really dig bands that kick ass live.   We just try to be natural, to play at the loudest volume possible, and to be violent.   We stay simple.   We aren’t the band that takes too much time to sound check monitors and stuff like that.   We like to be “in your face,” to come out and play.   That’s why I regard NAGA basically as a punk/hardcore band, concerning the approach and attitude.   We do not have any filter – we like to play straight and direct, that’s all.

Concerning the past live shows, I would mention the Watchtower Festival in Pisa with Napalm Death, Church of Misery and The secret, where we met those amazing guys Michael, Lorenzo and Marco (from the Secret/Hyerophant), the Glue lab in Ancona, Tetris in Trieste, and two concerts in our city Naples, the first at Cellar with Marnero, and another on a harbor in the middle of Naples’s gulf called Molosiglio, two D.I.Y. concerts, fully packed with 200-300 people and lots of friends. Do not ever underestimate Naples’ scene. We belong here. It’s a lot better and hotter than others although not publicized.

During your musical career, you have seen lots of changes, first of all the “social-media” revolution, which can help bands to expand their possibilities outside their own country. What do you think about this and have you noticed some differences between past and present? What do you think about the current musical scene in Italy and abroad?

Social media are a double edged sword. It allows bands to spread their message and music around the world, but it’s something that could saturate the scene too. The problem with social media is that now you have to take care of lots of other stuff apart from music, the image, the posts, news and so on. I do not really like this aspect. Emanuele is a little more skilled than me in this, I am not good at it. But, of course, Facebook and Bandcamp have been helping us a lot, same goes with Discogs and eBay where you can spread your music worldwide. I knew our first record Hen was in the hands of Tad Doyle of Tad/Brothers of the Sonic Cloth or in the ones of Mike Scheidt of Yob and it was pretty amazing, since I’ve been listening to these bands since I was 15.

About the scene, I think that now there are many good bands around not only in our genre, the problem is sometimes the public and the live culture. In Germany, where I am at the moment, people go to see live shows buy merch and so on. In Italy, things are going slower, you have to plan carefully every event and so on. But I can not complain about Naples and Italy. In general, we have always had an amazing audience and a good feedback.

Speaking of Italian bands I’d mention above all Grime, Hyerophant, Messa, Caronte, Profanal, Fuoco Fatuo,Zippo/Shores of null, La Casta and Marnero, there are many others but these are the first coming to my mind right now.

Any closing thoughts for the Doomed & Stoned readers?

No hope, no joy, worship Naas.

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