“Why eight?” you ask. Yes, why indeed. “And what exactly constitutes ‘heavy’ anyway?” “And why do SunnO))) not appear here at all?!” Fine questions all. Please feel free to pitch a bitch in the comments below. And now –
8. RUMORS OF WAR – High on Fire
People frequently come up to me on the street and ask, “Nathan, how would you describe High on Fire’s music?” To which, the only reasonable response is, “Like a hoard of deranged barbarians riding a pack of giant, blood-drenched wolves into battle.” And with only three guys to boot. I have no idea how they do it.
7. BEAUTIFUL CHILD – Swans
The Swans, in their mid-eighties, heavy period heyday, were so crushing and uncompromising that people would frequently vomit and pass out from the impact of the sheer sonic onslaught* . Here’s the proof.
6. DREAM WEAVER – Crowbar
“What’s that?” you say? “Gary Wright’s twee 70s AOR radio staple Dream Weaver?! Certainly nothing heavy about that.” Oh, dear listener, clearly you are new to Crowbar. You might want to lie on the floor for this one, lest you hurt yourself.
5. LIKE RATS – Godflesh
Industrial grindcore legend Justin Broadrick (a founding member of Napalm Death and currently of shoegazey post-metal act Jesu) is no stranger to the heavy, and nowhere was he more punishing than on Godflesh’s masterpiece Streetcleaner.
4. MORALE – Napalm Death
Napalm are known for writing some of the hardest, fastest and shortest songs of all time (one of them clocking in at just under three seconds). But with Morale they prove that they are equally adept masters of cathartic doom.
3. CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, EUGENE – Pink Floyd
For nearly five excruciatingly tense but beautiful minutes you just know this is building to something vicious and horrifying. And you’re right. But, no matter how many times you listen to the song, you’re never really ready for it.
2. DARK WAS THE NIGHT – Blind Willie Johnson
Blinded as a small child by his father’s girlfriend after the old man beat her for cheating, growing up in extreme poverty and homelessness, having to use wet newspapers for a bed, only to end up dead, broke and all but forgotten, Blind Willie Johnson knew suffering like most can only imagine. And he poured it all into his music; and nowhere more so than this plaintive wail from the depths of a man’s anguished soul. Had Neurosis not written Purify, there would be nothing heavier than this.
1. PURIFY – Neurosis
Here it is, the single, all-time heaviest piece of recorded music there is or will ever be. Dark, bleak, haunting, crushing, apocalyptic, and most of all PRIMAL, this piece has it all – from the ominous strings floating under the surface of the spare, static-laden intro to the explosion of tribal drums, screaming call-and response vocals and punishing guitars that start huge and steadily build in violence, to the final bleat of funereal bagpipes echoing across a barren sonic wasteland, there will simply never be anything to top this aural assault on the senses.
* Much like SunnO)))’s shows today. There, they made the list (more or less).
I defer to your judgment on lists like these, except I always have three things I need to add.
Here are those things.
(3) Kinghorse – “Freeze”
(2) Mastodon – “Mother Puncher”
And my pick for the heaviest song ever recorded (rumor is that after it was recorded there was an uptick in seismic activity along the New Madrid fault line) is this absolutely crushing song by Pelican. Starting around the 5:00 minute mark it gets louder, heavier, more violent, and becomes this, I don’t know, buzzsaw?
(1) Pelican – “Drought”
Posted by Ben | January 3, 2012, 11:20 amAll three of these are bad motor scooters, no doubt. I love me some Kinghorse for sure, and they rocked like righteous pigs in their day, but they’re just not heavy enough for this list. Slammin’, bloody, bare-knuckled metal, just not quite “oh god . . . something’s really wrong here . . .” heavy. Same reason there’s no Motorhead. “Drought” is a serious contender. I’d definitely put it in the top fifteen. Same deal with “Mother Puncher” (maybe top 20 for that one — although honestly on a different day it might be a threat to High on Fire for the #8 slot).
“Man, Nathan, that’s some arbitrary reasoning there.”
‘Struth!
Posted by Nathan | January 8, 2012, 8:11 pmWrong pick on Neurosis. ‘Aeon’ is the heaviest track on the record. Perfection all over.
Posted by Koen | January 8, 2012, 1:10 pmI can’t really beef with ‘Aeon.’ I would consider it the climax to the heaviest album of all time (perhaps the greatest too, although that’s a tough call). The pretty piano at the start really provides no warning for the hell that is about to unleash. But for sheer, across-the-board heaviness in every possible sense of what heavy music could be, nothing touches ‘Purify’ for me. Every time that riff kicks in right after Scott growls “fall back to stone, fall back on spear” I black out and wake up three days later miles from home, smeared with elk’s blood and surrounded by smoldering ash. Every single time. I’ve finally stopped listening to it in the car.
Posted by Nathan | January 8, 2012, 8:24 pmI’d also like your opinion on The Body’s – “Even the Saints Knew the Hour of Failure and Loss” (a song that Bill Gordon introduced me to last year)
Posted by ben | January 9, 2012, 6:48 amMy opinion is that it is heavier than god’s balls and I love the holy fuck out of it. Definitely Swans-esque with Jarboe-ish vocals by way of Sleepy-Time Gorilla Museum (how’s that for an esoteric review). That buried, screeching male voice reminds me a lot of one of the vocalists from a Cincinnati band called Mala In Se that everyone should check out immediately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFfX8GOcTfg
I need to get more The Body stuff. Big thanks to Bill Gordon for looking out on this one. (And yes, this should be on the list somewhere).
Posted by Nathan | January 10, 2012, 8:57 pmActually, the best pick for Neurosis is “The Doorway” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OeN_4ZepPE
The riff at 3:19 is pure damnation, as if God was pouring down his final judgment upon the earth.
Posted by Andrew | January 9, 2012, 9:20 amI love Times of Grace, and The Doorway and The Last You’ll Know are my favorite cuts. But of all Neurosis albums since SOZ this one feels the driest and most plodding. I think because it’s somewhat incomplete without Tribes of Neurot’s “Grace” (which doesn’t really stand on its own at all, in my opinion).
Posted by Nathan | January 11, 2012, 11:14 pm