What’s the heaviest band in the world? Not long ago, I came across a The Guardian article which addressed this mystifying question. And although, if asked to answer in two words, I would agree with them and say “Sunn O))) period”, I thought it would be good to go a bit more into detail on this topic as “heavy” is quite a broad term. Besides, while The Guardian seemingly underscore volume as an important factor in the formula to heaviness, the fact that volume depends not only on the band’s and the venue’s equipment, but also on the chances of catching the artist in a live performance, makes volume a rather shallow element of the music itself. As such, Swans sound somehow harmless through small laptop speakers.
So then, what does heavy mean? And who is heavy? The former is an incredibly convoluted question whose answer, as pointed out by The Guardian, comes down to the listener’s individual experience. For me, a song is heavy when it creates an abrasive and dread atmosphere. A heavy song has a twisted nature, it makes you frown. Some people describe stoner doom metal riffs as slow prehistoric-sized mastodons smashing everything on their way. A heavy song fills the plot of its waveform, which indeed, gives the physical feeling of high volume. A comparison of such a waveform to that of a pop song would reveal a clear difference. Hence, “heavy” and “easy-listening” could be seen as antonyms, however, I would avoid the term “hard-listening” as we metalheads normally crave such a distressful type of music.
Indeed, this adjective has been historically linked to metal. Most likely the term heavy metal was coined by prominent reviewer Mike Saunders. The guru of the golden age of rock would use this term while reviewing Humble Pie‘s As Safe As Yesterday Is, and Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come in 1970 and 71, respectively. Previously, Jimi Hendrix’s music had already been described in reviews as “heavy metal falling from the sky”. Like in many aspects of popular music, The Beatles are believed to play a role in the story. In this case, their 1969 song ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ is even deemed one of the earliest examples of heavy metal by some music eggheads.
But hindsight is always 20/20, and now we all know that it was Black Sabbath’s 1970 debut which fully defined what heavy metal means. Ever since such a bomb nuked the popular music, musicians have been vying to create the heaviest possible music, pushing the boundaries in all directions. Since these directions are manifold, they paved the way to different perspectives of the term “heavy”, each of which I’ll discuss in the following. I’ll bring up the bands that take such features to the extreme so that we can shortlist some of the heaviest bands out there. As a disclaimer, these are just examples, one can definitely unearth even stranger specimens digging deeper into the underground.
RIFF WORSHIP
In about 6 minutes of terrifying gloom, our spiritual leader Tommy Iommi taught us what heavy means in Black Sabbath’s homonymous track from 1970. “Thou shalt play slow and tune low”, Iommi would’ve preached in the hypnotic main riff of slow tempos. Guitar distortion is thus the most straightforward approach to heaviness.
With the technological advances in pedal design, nowadays there doesn’t seem to be a limit for how smashing riffs can be. And no doubt it is the Seattle monks Sunn O))) (pronounced as «sun») who take riff worship to the extreme. Formed from the ashes of other remarkably heavy yet more human bands, Sunn O))) build their entire sound on layers of guitar and bass distortion, particularly focusing on low and sub-bass tones. But it’s not only the unprecedented heaviness of their riffs what makes them such a unique band, O’Malley and Anderson have achieved a signature guitar tone that surprisingly turns out to be quite an ear-pleasing one.
Furthermore, Sunn O))) deliver quite a unique experience in their live performances. Yup, they’re most likely the loudest band in the world! I managed to witness their 2009 jaw-dropping gig in Mexico City. The published equipment specs showed that Sunn O))) played at 125dB with frequencies as low as 80Hz. These two values amount to a physical presence of the riffs – one can literally feel the soundwaves hitting one’s chest. This reaction is what started the myth of people throwing up in Swans and My Bloody Valentine shows. I bet that chap puking in an Electric Wizard gig whom The Guardian talks about, did it after having drunk eight pints of Foster’s or whatever the cheapest beer on tap was. As a reference for Sunn’s volume, a close observer would hear an airplane taking off at 120dB.
Their uniqueness notwithstanding, Sunn O))) started off as a tribute band to visioners and Kurt Cobain pals Earth, who by as early as 1993 had already tamed the formula for what we know today as drone doom metal in their debut LP Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version. Drone doom metal refers to this paradigm of dropping all drums and vocals for focusing solely on low-tuned and downtempo riffs, turning into what I consider the heaviest metal music ever made. Medically, it is known that low frequencies produce a feeling of sadness and dismay in the human mind, e.g. a double bass is commonly used in melancholic music. Thus, the atmosphere created in Earth’s early work drags the listener to a sombre mental state that seldom does any other kind of music create. Sunn O))) would take their name from Earth’s 1995 compilation Sunn Amps and Smashing Guitars. A striking aspect about Earth’s past is how the arguably then-heaviest band on Earth used to mingle with mainstream acts, being even signed by grunge power house Sub-Pop records.
Nevertheless, it might be a bit reckless to claim that Earth singlehanded came up with the drone metal formula. By 1992, not only had the Melvins pioneered (if not invented) grunge and sludge metal, they had also written and performed what was at the time the heaviest song ever recorded, the 10-minute amp-smasher ‘Hung Bunny’. Being the opening track to their fourth LP Lysol, the song stretched past the heaviness explored in their successful previous album Bullhead (1991). Nowadays, drone metal is, although not a big one, a well-established genre. Some insanely heavy examples include Gnaw Their Tongues, Black Boned Angel, Moss, and some selected tracks by Boris.
A thick and dread sound with low tuned guitars and slow tempos is what not only drone but general doom metal specializes on. Sabbath fervent disciples Sleep show us how to master the riff to craft heaviness at its best. In truth, stoner doom metal bands who follow the teachings of Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality (1971) normally have a crushing but clean sound, mostly owing to the predominant use of clean vocals and blues rhythms. Check Pombagira, for an extreme example of heaviness in stoner metal.
Other bands provide a much grimmer approach to heaviness. Stoner doom’s more miserable sibling, sludge metal, is a clear example. Hailing from Japan, it is Corrupted whom I would consider the heaviest and most twisted sludge band in the planet. With lyrics mostly in Spanish, Corrupted’s brand of doom involves riffs that are not only slow and of low tone, they’re also dirty and full of feedback. Corrupted’s sound depicts the misery of human lives, not only through their lyrics about anti-social behaviour, misanthropy and mind torture, but also through their utterly dirty sound.
Likewise, some funeral doom metal bands can also top among the heaviest. With a slightly different atmosphere, Beyond Black Void is probably the most crushing among the many projects of Belgium-based artist Stijn Van Cauter. The project creates the state of mind of sheer solitude and emptiness, making the most of downtempo melodies, extremely distorted riffs and the most brutal vocals in the genre. Other doom bands that not only crush your speakers but also your spirit include Stabat Mater, Hierophant (New Jersey), Rigor Sardonicous, Moss, Buried at Sea and Burning Witch.
SPEED AND AGRESSION
It was only a matter of time for musicians to ditch the tempo habits that Black Sabbath’s bluesy sound originally embraced. By the late 70s, a thriving New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) would expand the genre’s horizons to the exploration of hardcore punk tempos. Since Mötorhead masterfully released Overkill in 1979, musicians started to increase the speed and violence in their music, with the 80s developments on metal music mainly focusing on these two avenues.
Unquestionably, a way of crafting heavy music is to saturate it with drums and cymbals beats, distorted riffs, fast changes, and outraged vocals. Hence, it comes with no surprise that extreme metal is more commonly associated with fast tempos and a violent character.
Humans did reach their limits in drumming speed during the 80s. It was once more in Birmingham where then-hardcore punk band Napalm Death took the scene by storm taking drumming to the next level when patenting the so-called blast beats in their 1987 LP Scum, albeit earlier examples have been unearthed. Of particular importance is Sarcófago’s early contribution to this drumming technique. Mexican guitarist to Napalm Death, Jesse Pintado, would later coin the new-born style as grindcore. Just one year after Scum, Switzerland’s Fear of God recorded a harsher and dirtier version of grindcore. This would eventually inspire the noisegrind tendency which extreme bands like Anal Cunt belong to.
Meanwhile in Liverpool, Carcass would claim that their drummer, Ken Owens, had reached the speed limit at which a human can play drums. Carcass had a different approach to brutality – they added blood and gore. Their 1988 debut, Reek of Putrefaction, sparked a scene that’s been ever since in search for the most brutal, grizzly and disgusting sound.
This blood-infused music is commonly referred to as goregrind, and with the current use of technology, not only in pedals, but also in software, there doesn’t seem to be a limit for its heaviness. Carcass’ claims on the limits of human drummers would then be overcome by musicians whose craving for faster speeds would make them replace human drummers with drum machines. One of the most successful examples is Las Vegas duo Mortician, who by the release of their debut album Hacked Up for Barbecue in 1996, were convinced that they would never find a human drummer who could meet their speed requirements. Being one of the first death metal albums I bought as a teenager, Hacked Up for Barbecue is still what I deem one of the heaviest pieces of music ever recorded. Rather than being inspired by the clinical style of Carcass, Mortician leans more towards Impetigo’s inspiration on horror films. Mortician’s music is brutal in all tiers: the ultra-fast drum machine, the extra distortion on guitar and bass, the remarkably deep growls, and them recurrent horror movie samples.
The lack of limits in the genre has led to some examples that should be taken with a pinch of salt rather than as serious musical efforts, e.g. ridiculously fast drum machines that no longer resemble drums but just a high-frequency noise. Nevertheless, one can still find enjoyable albums that stretch past the average brutality in the genre. The Mexican goregrind scene gave us some of the most brutal albums during its heyday in the late 90s and early 00s. Querétaro’s Disgorge sparked this scene with their debut LP Chronic Corpora Infest (1997). Describing this record as “heavy” would be an understatement. Oxidised Razor’s …Carne…Sangre… (2003) is another ultra-heavy example from this scene.
Since lyrics are also taken to extremity, they normally deal with the worst aspects of human beings, including not only murder and gore, but also perversion. This brings in the picture one of the most tumultuous goregrind albums I have memories of, Drowned in Rectal Sludge (2000) by Texan psychopaths Intestinal Disgorge. In general, lyrical themes are meant to be offensive and triggering. The most infamous example being obviously Anal Cunt. This, rather than the music itself, can also put even the most fervent metalheads off.
Of course, there is a missing part in this picture, and that’s the load of heaviness that black metal puts on the scale. Black metal is highly regarded the most extreme metal subgenre. In contrast to grindcore, the vast majority of its songs preserve a clear metal structure. Orthodox metalheads who go by the book (the Encyclopedia Metallum) argue that a big chunk of the grindcore genre is not precisely metal due to the lack of metal riffs and the genre’s roots on hardcore. In light of this, frontline goregrind bands like Last Days of Humanity won’t appear in the book’s index. Black metal, on the other hand, is riff-wise mainly based on the tremolo picking technique which, with a considerable amount of distortion, leads to a unique, almost ceremonial sound.
Since an 18-year-old Quorthon recorded Bathory’s first LP in 1984, the most likely unintentional lo-fi budget production of this cornerstone album has inspired black metal musicians to find the rawest sound they can record. This abrasive sound helps the eerie atmosphere of a genre in which anti-Christian, Satanic and loathly lyrical themes are the standard. Owing to the fast-growing popularity of the genre’s second wave in the 90s, a distinction is now made to refer to the mutation of black metal that specializes in lo-fi production and rough song-writing. The style is appropriately named “raw black metal”, and it can be regarded the heaviest branch in the genre. We can add many of these bands to our list of the heaviest bands on Earth, including Ildjarn, early Behexen, Art Maléfica, F45.2, Revenant Marquis, the list and the guitar distortion would just grow bigger if we dug deeper into the underground.
Nevertheless, I would like to add to our list of suspects the mugshot of a band that, a bit out of the blue, is not precisely a raw black metal act. I’m talking about Madrid’s Teitanblood. The brutality these Spaniards craft can be more fairly compared to that of death metal acts like Morbosidad and Archgoat. Teitanblood master an extremely filthy guitar tone that, when combined with a terrifying work on vocals, provides an utterly chaotic sound. It is this distinctive guitar tone what gives Teitanblood a thicker sound in comparison with the standard noisy riff in black metal.
EXPERIMENTATION
If we gave a unidirectional definition of “heavy music” as simply the harshest possible sound, have no doubt the answer would lie in experimental electronic music. Interestingly, electronic music first started as sheer experimentation with analogue circuits that eventually developed into avantgarde compositions. Check for example John Cage’s pioneering work manipulating pre-recorded frequencies on records and magnetic tapes, these compositions date back to as early as 1939. Nowadays, the so-called noise music is a whole movement, and it is not limited to electronic music. Obviously, it is easy to converge our search to artists who simply record (and even sell) plain white noise. Although not quite the case, Japanese lauded noise artist Merzbow is next to it delivering some of the harshest “music” that can be bought. And at this end of the road, one can even put in question the definition of “music”. In a legendary quote, Merzbow himself points out:
“I have no idea what you term ‘music’ and ‘noise’, it’s different depending on each person. If noise means uncomfortable sound, then pop music is noise to me”
However, before closing this bar, I’ll ring the last order bell and I’ll add that there are many other electronic artists that create ultra-heavy, yet fascinating music. Power electronics hosts a considerable number of such artists. The main feature that calls our attention here is the manipulation of both sub-base frequencies and harsh feedback produced in both software and hardware. These elements bring back the thick and nasty sound that we are looking for. Power electronics artists like Stratvm Terror, Brighter Death Now, and vanished Finnish duo Pan Sonic are definitely worth checking out. In fact, Pan Sonic collaborated with Sunn O))) in their 2009 experimental piece Che. Similarly, Merzbow is sometimes given the title of “the fourth Boris”, due to his almost permanent collaboration with also ultra-heavy Japanese trio Boris. Indeed, bringing aboard a noise person in a metal recording, or allowing them manipulate your master tapes might turn into either an overload of heaviness, or the ruining of months’ worth of work. An extreme example of such kind of experiments can be found in Concerto for Harsh Noise Grind #1, the 2006 collaboration between grindcore band Mortalized and electronic noise artist Guilty Connector.
The rumble becomes even more scheming when metal musicians guest in noise artists’ experiments. One of the most destructive ones must be that one time Norwegian electronic duo Jazkamer, aka Jazzkammer, teamed up with Ivar Bjørnson and Iver Sandøy from Enslave fame to record Metal Music Machine (2006). With a title being a wordplay of Lou Reed’s infamous experiment Metal Machine Music (1975), the Norwegian collaboration resulted in a sadistic merge of twisted metal elements and atonal sounds that I’m sure any extreme metal fan will find appealing.
Experimentation for heaviness purposes is not limited to electronic music. Noise experiments in rock can be traced back to the 60s with early examples by Velvet Underground, and continue all the way to the establishment of shoegaze by My Bloody Valentine in 1991. The Angelic Process created some of the heaviest guitar tones in the genre. We have huge noise rock and shoegaze movements but I will skip for the time being.
I’ll conclude this search with one of the most spine-chilling albums ever recorded, Victim One: Agony (2006), by Norwegian band (or project?) Vonn. This experimental recording consists of a single 1 hour and 16-minute track of merciless drone doom metal. What one gets is quite a strange riffage that doesn’t present any structure, and a guitar tone that is next to the sound of a chainsaw. One can hear a woman screaming, panting and crying all along the track, sometimes accompanied by other indistinctive noises, including what appears to be glasses being smashed.
So there you go, those were some of the names I would credit for creating the heaviest music in the world. However, since the abuse of some of the musical means discussed here doesn’t seem to appeal many listeners, I’m sure there are many other artists buried in the underground which I overlooked this time. No doubt this is an endless search.
— PABLO CUSTODIO
