|   who has some favorite heavy albums? | Rae
Nov 11, 2003 1:18 PM | | Hehe, probably not that many people on this board, although I know there are a couple of you who share my affinity for heavy stuff. I can't listen to it exclusively, but there are certain times when my eardrums just need to be bludgeoned. With that in mind, here are ten albums I regularly reach for:
<b>10. Black Sabbath - <i>Paranoid</i> <font size=1>(1971)</font></b>
The original metal album, for me at least. Yeah, I know it wasn't their first, but it had all the ones I liked on it, from the title track to "Iron Man" to the epic "War Pigs." Still good.
<b>9. Racebannon - <i>Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In</i> <font size=1>(2002)</font></b>
This album just dropped last year and it's pure evil. The instrumentalists create a cacophany of riffage while the vocalist intones sing-speak with seeminly no regard for rhythm. It creates a very dense, claustrophobic atmosphere that truthfully I have a hard time taking for more than a few tracks. Exhausting.
<b>8. Nine Inch Nails - <i>The Downward Spiral</i> <font size=1>(1994)</font></b>
I'll be the first to freely admit that I don't know much about industrial, but when this album came out, it ruled my junior high school world. "March of the Pigs" throbbed like speed-addled Ministry, while the creepy "Closer" pounded the speakers with frightening immediacy.
<b>7. Napalm Death - <i>Scum</i> <font size=1>(1987)</font></b>
<i>Scum</i> plays like some four-track mistake: the vocals got slowed down while the rest of the instruments got sped up. Exhilarating where most grindcore is just numbing.
<b>6. Swans - <i>Children of God</i> <font size=1>(1987)</font></b>
All right, so Swans aren't deafening and they don't even use guitars a lot of the time, but that doesn't keep their music from being some of the most suffocating that I own. Relentlessly dark.
<b>5. Melvins - <i>Ozma</i> <font size=1>(1989)</font></b>
I like some of their later records better, but I'll give this one the nod for its heaviness. Melvins one-upped grindcore by deepening the vocals <i>and</i> slowing down the music, resulting in some of the most agonizing riffage ever put to tape. It sort of sounds like some kind of giant baby struggling to free itself from a constrictive womb.
<b>4. Refused - <i>The Shape of Punk to Come</i> <font size=1>(1998)</font></b>
While other new-school hardcore groups like Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan filled the bridges in their music with egregious guitar shredding, Refused mixed in jazz and sound samples, making the heavy parts seem all the more intense. Easily my favorite record in this genre.
<b>3. Big Black - <i>Atomizer</i> <font size=1>(1986)</font></b>
Metal with a drum machine and guitars that sound like they've been flattened into tinfoil, along with some of the most consciously confrontational lyrics ever penned. Somehow atonal and hook-filled at the same time.
<b>2. The Locust - <i>s/t</i> <font size=1>(1999)</font></b>
Their entire sound was summarized in the title of their 2001 EP <i>Flight of the Wounded Locust</i>: combine the speed and intricacy of "Flight of the Bumblebee" with the sound of the cries of a wounded animal and the destructiveness of nature's most feared insect. 20 brutal tracks in less than 20 minutes.
<b>1. Slayer - <i>Reign in Blood</i> <font size=1>(1985)</font></b>
Still the heaviest album I've ever heard.
Anyone have their own they'd like to share?
~Rae |
| No Motorhead? | J
Nov 11, 2003 1:27 PM | | I'm with ya on Paranoid, but overall it's a genre I can only listen to in short bursts & can rarely sit & listen to a whole album of the stuff. I guess Zeppelin had their heavy moments, too? So did Black Flag, for that matter. I'd have to put Guns 'N Roses' Appetite For Destruction on that list. Outside of that, the genre in general still leaves me just a bit cold. But...there's nothing like Motorhead. |
| I Just got the Motorhead box set | AD
Nov 11, 2003 1:32 PM | | havent opened it yet, plan to this weekend. |
| Nö | Rae
Nov 11, 2003 1:36 PM | | Don't get me wrong, I <i>love</i> Motörhead, but I wasn't trying to make a metal list. I was trying to list music-- regardless of genre-- that is crushingly heavy. Motörhead is too upbeat and melodic to fit into that description. Black Flag's later stuff might fit, but I prefer their earlier punkier work.
~Rae |
| Nö | DMK
Nov 11, 2003 4:34 PM | | b music-- regardless of genre-- that is crushingly heavy
Well, then, if genre isn't an issue, let me just say that as I type, my skull is being bashed in by that heavyweight jazz sonic terrorist, Peter Brotzmann and his Die Like A Dog Quartet. This is all acoustic music but at 10:00 on your volume dial, it will assault your senses and, at turns, lull you into the eye of the hurricane. Then it will bash your brains in further with more wailing and pounding. It's truly a "heavy" jazz disc. Quite frankly, I think that just about every "free jazz" or "avant garde jazz" buff was once a heavy rocker listening to the likes of Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, and the Who.
Thanks for the list - to you and the others. I'm just journeying into more heavy current rock and have picked up some Tool, Deftones, Metallica, Marilyn Manson, etc. I've never heard of most of the bands on these lists (of course, Black Sabbath takes up its fair share of space in my CD/LP racks) and I appreciate your descriptions. I'll check those out. Thanks to all! |
| here's a few | AD
Nov 11, 2003 1:30 PM | | Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power
Tool - Opiate, Undertow
Danzig - 666 Satans Child
Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
Rollins Band - ComeIn And Burn
Shadows Fall - Art Of Balance
Down - Nola
Life Of Agony - River Runs Red
Metallica - Kill Em All, Master Of Puppets, Ride The Lightning, And Justice For All |
| a few more | AD
Nov 11, 2003 1:35 PM | | Rorschach Test - Peace Minus One
Black Label Society - Sonic Brew, Stonger Than Death, 1919 Eternal, Blessed Hellride |
| my 180-gram copy of Love - <i>Forever Changes</i> (nt) | Booji Boy
Nov 11, 2003 1:49 PM | | Oh, not what you meant? |
| NICE LIST | Jar
Nov 11, 2003 1:59 PM | | here's some of my favorites, by no means definitive..
Acid Bath - WHEN THE KITE STRING POPS - evil, spooky, thrashy and heavy as hell. I sometimes really think this is one of the best albums ever, if you're into evil, spook, thrashy heavy music.
Buzzoven - SORE - pretty much the same description as the above album, except not quite as thrashy. Definately heavy as hell.
Melvins - OZMA.. yea.. or BULLHEAD. or GLUEY PORCH TREATMENTS. But hey, if you get the OZMA cd you get GLUEY too.. what a double cd.
Helmet - STRAP IT ON. It was heavy. It wasn't hardcore. It wasn't metal. It was something pretty new at the time. We called it SKRONK.
Slayer - SOUTH OF HEAVEN - yea, I know they slowed down a little and Tom Araya started actually singing, but I just love the recording of this album. It's thicker than REIGN IN BLOOD..
Sepultura - ROOTS - damn..
Hum - DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD - yes, heavy.
Exodus - BONDED BY BLOOD, Possessed - SEVEN CHURCHES, Celtic Frost - TO MEGATHERION - three of my all-time favorite thrash metal albums.
Tool - pick one.. though UNDERTOW is just really, man, I love how that one is recorded. Really thick.
The Jesus Lizard - GOAT - this album just beats the listener into submission.
Kyuss - WELCOME TO SKY VALLEY and BLUES FOR THE RED SUN - Should be required listening for all fans of rock music.
-jar |
| NICE LIST to you too! | AD
Nov 11, 2003 2:02 PM | | Helmet - Meantime
Abdullah - Graveyard Poetry (very Sabbathy)
Clutch - Clutch, Pure Rock Fury
Soulfly - Soulfly |
| THANK YOU | Rae
Nov 11, 2003 2:21 PM | | Never heard of Buzzoven. Acid Bath sounds familiar, but I don't think I've heard them either. I'll have to look both of those up.
Yeah, Jesus Lizard. And HAMMERHEAD.
~Rae |
| Agreed that you have to have Hum on the list! | Swish
Nov 11, 2003 3:07 PM | | Nice choice Jar, and one of the few "heavy" cds I really enjoy.
Swish Baby |
| Hum is heavy? | Davey
Nov 11, 2003 4:13 PM | | Goat doesn't seem all that heavy to me either with all the open space and dynamics. And too much melodic rock in Hum to be called heavy. Nirvana is heavier than Hum! But they're both heavier than most of what I listen to so I better watch what I say :-) |
| Have you heard "Downward is Heavenward"? | Swish
Nov 11, 2003 5:30 PM | | I think that can be defined as "heavy", although some of their other stuff may not be. I don't think Nirvana did anything heavier than Downward.
Then again, I could be wrong. They call me "Swish". |
| Maybe I don't know what heavy means | Davey
Nov 11, 2003 5:44 PM | | Wouldn't be the firt time, but I don't think there's anything on Downward is Heavenward that is as heavy as Smells Like Teen Spirit or Come As You Are or a few others by Nirvana. Certainly not songs like The Inuit Promise?
But they call me Dumbo :-) |
| heavy is pretty subjective really.. | Jar
Nov 11, 2003 9:11 PM | | one person's heavy is another person's pussy rock.
I mean, at one time, I'm sure someone somewhere called Poison "heavy."
Comparing Nirvana to Hum is a little silly.. they're heavy in different ways..
Also, a lot of it is tied up with how the band played in the live setting. An album *can* be heavy, as heavy as a studio album can be, but, well, there are bands that tore it up that to me, never really put out a very heavy album.
I've seen Matt Talbot of Hum (and now Centaur) play several times.. with both bands.. definately heavy..
I guess I don't relate it to melody or singing voice or anything like that.. it's the viceral quality, that connection when all the instrument hit together just right and it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck..
that's heavy.
sorry, I should be sleeping now..zzzzzzzzzzzzz
-jar |
| Did you just call me silly? | Davey
Nov 11, 2003 10:01 PM | | If you weren't on your way to bed right now, I'd come over there and slap you around some!
Now technically speaking, I didn't actually compare Nirvana to Hum, only said that I thought some Nirvana songs were heavier than some of the songs on Downward is Heavenward, which was contrary to what Swish said. I mean, how can one label a song like Apollo as heavy? But I'm just kidding around mostly, I understad what you mean by the heavy feel. More like heavy, sustained chords. I kind of got the feel that Rae was talking more about albums that had a sustained heaviness, more like a barrage of sound. Hum seems kind of peaceful most of the time, but they do have a heavy feel and I can see what you mean with the live reference. So many bands seem to get really heavy in concert. Tough to capture that sound in the studio, I guess. |
| now that I've gotten some sleep.. | Jar
Nov 12, 2003 6:02 AM | | I guess you're not as silly as I thought...
;)
-jar |
| Also, "heavy" has many different subcharacteristics. (long) | mad rhetorik
Nov 11, 2003 10:33 PM | | Music can be heavy for various reasons, depending on a person's concept of what is "heavy." To wit:
Heavy = Fast: Lots of bpm, blastbeats, etc. Think early Slayer, Crytopsy, and the like.
Heavy = Dark, Plodding, Sludgy: Bottom-heaviness, a "deep" feel, slow tempo. Black Sabbath is the master of this approach, along with The Melvins. Another worthy mention is Alice In Chains.
Heavy = Thrashy: Not to be confused with thrash. Often used to describe primitive proto-metal and proto-punk bands like The Stooges, The MC5, and Blue Cheer.
Heavy = Intense, Visceral: Most all heavy music is intense, of course, but for me a band I'd describe as "intense" usually features quick and relentless dynamic changes and pounding rhythms. The Refused and At The Drive-In sound like this, as do many, many other bands.
Heavy = Oppressive, Claustrophobic, Dense, Massive: Believe it or not, King Crimson's Red is the best example I can think off. The instruments feel crowded, like the band was playing in a small room. Of course, Black Sabbath was good at this too, along with stoner rock bands like Kyuss.
Heavy = Extreme Vox: Screaming, shrieking, growling, etc. Most death and black metal, along with sects of punk, use this approach.
Heavy = Dissonant: This includes music that is not "heavy" in a conventional sense, but noisy and harsh. Often feedback blasts and atonality are present. The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, and Big Black are strong examples of this.
Heavy = Technical, Complex: Of course, one does not refer to prog bands as "heavy" due to technicality alone. But many metal bands are complex in their song structures, time signatures etc., especially in thrash and progressive metal (i.e. Tool). Two fine examples of extremely technical metal are Spiral Architect and Meshuggah.
Heavy = Chaotic, Unpredictable: Once again, not "heavy" in the conventional sense, but is often an aspect of heavier music. It is either accomplished by lots of random time/riff/tempo changes (think Dillinger Escape Plan) or even bizarre genre switches mid-song (as in Mr. Bungle).
Heavy = HEAVY AS F--K, HEAVY AS A HERD OF PACHYDERMS, HEAVY AS...A REALLY HEAVY THING, <b>EXTREME</b>: Once in a while, you run into a band that embraces a lot of the above qualities and makes an album that is just plain sick in its degree of, uh, "heft." Strapping Young Lad, IMO, has this category dominated.
Sorry if I've bored you with the semantics of all this. : ) |
| Dillenger & Cave In | Jar
Nov 12, 2003 6:16 AM | | I definately need to hear more Dillenger.. What I've heard is some very head spinning stuff. CALCULATING INFINITY has been on my wish list for too long now. Another band along those lines I just heard is Botch. Whoa. What do you think of Cave In? They used to get lumped in with the Dillenger/Converge crowd but now they're more like disciples of Radiohead, Failure and Rush. I like what I've heard of their screaming days, just a few songs though. I'm a big fan of JUPITER, but ANTENNA hasn't really grabbed me yet. No one around here seemed to be too impressed by it either. The reviews were glowing, I had high expectations, but.. I dunno, the album is good, but not mind-blowing.
-jar |
| D.E.P. = the Ornette Coleman of grindcore. | mad rhetorik
Nov 12, 2003 7:36 AM | | Their music is really complex in almost a jazz sort of way. Lots of fast riff and time changes, occasional atonality, screamed vox, and just general insanity. Not my cup of tea (I hate the lead singer, and there's no flow to the music) but I can see why people appreciate it.
I haven't heard any of Cave-In's stuff. I might want to check them out. |
| Love those descriptions of Acid Bath and Buzzoven... | Whooptee
Nov 11, 2003 4:28 PM | | I probably need to check those out.
Great list!
John |
| My standard response | Slosh
Nov 11, 2003 2:09 PM | | Sepultura - Chaos AD, Roots, Arise, Beneath The Remains
Metallica - all up to and including ...And Justice For All
Mastodon - Remission
Faith No More - Angel Dust, The Real Thing
Tool - all, but especially Undertow and Aenima
A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
Deftones - Adrenaline
Melvins - Houdini, Stoner Witch, Stag
Slayer - South Of Heaven
Alice In Chains - Dirt
Korn - Life Is Peachy, s/t (don't chuckle over there, these two albums rawk!)
...and just for something really ancient:
Nazareth - Hair Of The Dog, although it seems kinda tame compared to the rest of my list. Funny that that's the only good album they ever made but it's <i>really</i> fvckin' good!
Rae, if you're counting NIN then I'll throw Frodus - And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea into the mix, although I think of them more as a hardcore band ala Fugazi than metal
NP: my beta 2003 year-end mix
~Slosh - metalhead sherpa :-) |
| oh, Frodus! | Rae
Nov 11, 2003 2:20 PM | | Great call; I love that album. Like I told J, I wasn't really trying to make a metal list. Probably less than half of the groups I mentioned would be classified as "metal." Good catch on Mastodon and Sepultura too, those are some other favorites of mine.
~Rae |
| Heaviest albums I own thus far: | mad rhetorik
Nov 11, 2003 3:41 PM | | Refused: The Shape Of Punk To Come (intense, technical, screamed vocals)
At The Drive-In: Relationship Of Command (fast, dissonant, intense)
Metallica: Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, ..And Justice For All (fast, heavy, and technical, respectively)
Black Sabbath: Paranoid, Master Of Reality (dark, sludgy, oppressive)
King Crimson: Red (dense, dissonant, dark)
Megadeth: Rust In Peace (high level of technicality)
The Stooges: Fun House (wild, intense, dark, dissonant)
MC5: Kick Out The Jams (extremely dissonant, intense, thrashy)
System Of A Down: Toxicity (brutal heaviness, fast)
Kyuss: Blues For The Red Sun (sonically massive, dense)
Tool: Lateralus (complex, heavy, dark)
Alice In Chains: Dirt (dark, oppressive, grungy)
Motorhead: Ace Of Spades (fast, intense, somewhat heavy)
Notice that not one album in my collection features silly growled vocals.
Heaviest albums that I have listened to, but don't own:
Meshuggah: Nothing (technical, oppressive, ridiculously heavy, extreme vox)
Strapping Young Lad: SYL (heavy as f--k, that's all that needs to be said)
Opeth: Blackwater Park (unpredictable switches between clean and heavy stylings, oppressive, dark, heavy, growling)
Death: Individual Thought Patterns (heavy, technical, growled vocals w/ good lyrics, probably will buy this in future)
Dimmu Borgir: Can't remember album title (heavy, fast, black metal vox) |
| I haven't bought anything heavy in a long while... | Whooptee
Nov 11, 2003 4:20 PM | | so most of these are a little old. Here's some of my favorites:
Slayer - South of Heaven - This was my intro to Slayer. I remember slapping it in my tape deck and listening to it for maybe half a song and thinking "this sucks!" and pulling it out. About a month later I put it back in and just let it play. It took a while, but eventually I was hooked. I bought "Reign in Blood" and later "Seasons in the Abyss", "Decade of Aggression" and a few others. Nowadays I only own "South of Heaven" and "Seasons in the Abyss". Still a couple of my favorite discs.
Biohazard - Urban Discipline - Love this album. It's like a bulldozer is pummelling you, it so heavy sometimes. I have this one and "State of the World Address".
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun - I used to listen to this album for hours at a time. I haven't pulled it out in a while, which will change here in about 5 minutes. I also like "Welcome to Sky Valley".
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power - These are my homeboys. I went to high school with the drummer, guitarist and bassist. Back then a guy named Terry Glaze was the singer. I think he went on to sing for a band called Lord Tracy. They hadn't found their own sound yet and sounded more or less like a Judas Priest - Lite. I had owned some of their earlier albums, "Metal Magic", "Power Metal" and "Cowboys from Hell", some of which had their moments, but this is the one where they finally put everything together and really started kicking some ass.
Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East - I always liked this live album better than their studio releases (though they say a lot of it was overdubbed in the studio). It just had a fuller, heavier sound. I also really liked their "Painkiller" album as well. It was a welcome return to form and probably my second favorite of their stuff.
Black Sabbath - Paranoid - Of course. Still one of my favorite albums.
Corrosion of Conformity - Blind - Great album, pure heaviness with a punk rock ethic. They kind of fell off with their next album "Deliverance".
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto - I like the b-movie schlock combined with heavy riffage.
That's all I can think of right this sec.
John |
| System of a Down - Toxicity | RPM
Nov 11, 2003 6:47 PM | | A recent (or is it an oldie by RR standards? :-)) relentlesly pounding album which hasn't lost it's appeal with me yet. |
| some recent favourites | Dusty Chalk
Nov 11, 2003 8:25 PM | | Godflesh, <I><B>Pure</I></B> -- the other extreme from Slayer -- slow, dirge rock. I've said time and time again that there are more notes/chords on a 35 minute Slayer album than there is on a 70+ minute Godflesh album. The beat is a bit mechanized.
Shape of Despair, both albums <I><B>Shades of...</I></B> and <I><B>Angels of Distress</I></B> -- take the slowest Sabbath you ever heard, then play it on 16 2/3. If you read their lyrics, it reads like snippets, but those are the entire lyrics to the songs.
Khanate -- the jury is still out on this one. There's a lot going on, but it's just sick. Think of a musical equivalent of the plague, and you have the start of an idea.
Opeth -- good call, whoever mentioned them first. <I><B>Morningrise</I></B> is a pretty heavy freakin' album.
Ephel Duath, <I><B>Painter's Palette</I></B> -- surpasses Opeth in complexity and heaviness at the same time. Not as cohesive, but still worth a spin.
Agents of Oblivion -- right up there with good old Kyuss in fuzz/stoner rock.
The Crown -- blazing, blistering, overwhelming lavaflow of metal. I don't think the drummer lets up on the double-bass pedal but for a couple of seconds on the latest album. It also comes with their earliest stuff, and I can't really tell the difference -- they're pretty much a lead-foot-to-the-floor kind of thrash metal band, if you can dig that kind of thing. |
| Agents of Oblivion | Jar
Nov 11, 2003 9:26 PM | | have you heard Dax Riggs' new band Deadboy and the Elephantmen? I have their lone cd. Some very dark stuff.. not as 70's sounding as Agents of Oblivion.. much more gothic, but still has somewhat of a southern vibe. The recording quality is a little bit on the lower side of fi, but still a very enjoyable listen. Did you ever catch Acid Bath live? I'm assuming you know about the connections here..
Oh, I was going to ask if you had heard a new European death metal band called Grimfist. I only heard one song but it was pretty amazing. Haven't heard metal like that in a long time. the album is called GHOULS OF GRANDEUR. I'll have to mention that over on head-fi. I'm sure one of those children of the night has heard this band.
-jar |
| Agents of Oblivion | Dusty Chalk
Nov 12, 2003 7:43 PM | | No, I'm not aware of all the interconnections, but I <i>am</I> aware that the whole stoner/fuzz thing is pretty incestual. I can look up the connections, thanks for the vector.
And no, I never took an Acid Bath. Agents of Oblivion is a pretty new discovery for me.
Yes, I saw your post about Grimfist, sounds intriguing, will try to track it down. Will let you know how it is if I find it before you do. |
| Have you met Ellen the Allien yet? | Davey
Nov 11, 2003 9:47 PM | | Sounds like something that might light your fuse :-)
Ellen Allien: <i>Berlinette</i>
The founder of Berlin's upcoming Bpitch Control label issues an incredible full-length of dark noir electro, but all you need to notice is how f<a>ucking cool it sounds: just enough warmth to avoid being labeled "sterile," yet Kraftwerkian in its precision, Allien lays out her digitally clipped and stretched vocals in a brilliantly memorable pattern over synths that evoke PS1's <i>Wipeout</i> and Ridley Scott's <i>Blade Runner</i> in equal proportions.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/allien_ellen/berlinette.shtml |
| Sounds like my kind of girl... | Dusty Chalk
Nov 12, 2003 7:46 PM | | ...what a great pair of names to drop. I actually have both the <I><B>Wipeout</I></B> soundtrack and the <I><B>Blade Runner</I></B> soundtrack, and enjoy them both, but have no idea what a hybrid would sound like. Android Lust, perhaps? If so, I will <I>definitely</I> track it down.
I once searched a certain database (ab-cd.com) for every reference to Kraftwerk, and purchased everything that came up. |
| All pray at the alter of... | jasn
Nov 12, 2003 9:00 AM | | Budgie: Bandolier |
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