Artists like Confessor

Witchfinder General was an English heavy metal and doom metal band from Stourbridge. They were part of the new wave of British heavy metal and have been cited as a major influence on the doom metal genre. They were named after the 1968 British horror film Witchfinder General, itself based upon the infamous witchhunter known as Matthew Hopkins.

Tiamat is a Swedish metal band founded near Stockholm in 1990 and led by Johan Edlund. To date they have released ten studio albums. The band went through a number of stylistic changes in their earlier releases before settling on gothic metal. Under Edlund's leadership, the band would modify their style with influences ranging from Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate, Candlemass, Pink Floyd and King Crimson combined with Sumerian lyrical themes. H. P. Lovecraft's writings also appear to have influenced Tiamat's thematology, a development consistent with a broader trend in death metal culture.