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Leviathan is the band’s masterpiece (though there’s strong arguments for other albums of theirs), with a theme employing the concept behind Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It’s a different shade of sludge.ĭisciples of Isis and Neurosis in ambition if not in pure aesthetic, Mastodon took the deep, guttural riffs of those bands and paired them with hardcore and classic rock a la Thin Lizzy to turn out an entirely different form of sludge that swings rather than broods or churns. It’s moving and spiritual, though there’s no doubt about how much it crushes. This isn’t the same stuff that comprises the rawness of early Melvins or Eyehategod-not exactly. What makes “sludge” a slight misnomer (if only in perception) is how beautiful the album ultimately is. It’s part lengthy, unfolding post-rock landscapes and part meaty, Thor’s-hammer-heavy riffs. Over time, their sound evolved into something that only partially resembled metal, but on Oceanic, the ratio is perfect. Next to Neurosis, Isis is perhaps the most influential band in terms of taking sludge metal to elegant and epic new realms. But make no mistake-there is only one Neurosis. Listen carefully and you’ll hear a heavy influence on albums by Isis or Mastodon, or well, just about any metal album of the last 20 years to some degree. Which isn’t to say it’s not fun to listen to you have to clear out 70 minutes or so of your day to get to one proper listen of the album, but therein is one of metal’s most innovative masterpieces, a testament to searching beyond the template of doom and thrash and incorporating post-punk, dark ambient, a percussive tribal element and other dark and harrowing elements. Through Silver in Blood is more magma than sludge-it moves slowly and with lethal intensity, the Oakland metal outfit reaching their creative peak by turning each set of riffs into a grandiose dirge of seemingly immortal menace. Turning 20 years old this year, Neurosis’ landmark fifth album took an already heavy sound and made it into something more expansive and soul-devouring than a mere fuzzbox aesthetic. It’s a smorgasbord of sludge, which just happens to pretty convincingly pass for a grunge album. Opening track “Hooch” is all slow-motion power chord chug, while “Honey Bucket” invites in some rollicking Motörhead gallop and “Lizzy” shows off the band’s bluesy side. They’re versatile enough to share a stage with either Mudhoney or Mastodon, and Houdini is proof of that, its pummeling, powerful chug showcasing both the band’s relentless heaviness and their knack for tuneful songwriting. But The Melvins, Seattle’s heaviest band, are one of the most important bands in all of sludge history-and they just happened to benefit from all the attention afforded the burgeoning grunge scene in their backyard. You could arguably make the case that Nirvana’s Bleach crosses over into some sludge territory, though it’s fairly decisively not a metal album. “Sludge” and “grunge” are pretty much synonymous, at least outside the context of music, so it’d only make sense that there be some crossover between the two worlds. But the reward is in the darkly compelling sway and swirl of their acid-fried riffs, which don’t so much make the agony in Mike Williams’ lyrics more palatable but somehow make them feel all the more menacing. But when Eyehategod get in the sludge, they also get comfortable in the caustic abrasion of it all, drawing out piercing feedback hums longer than humans are expected to sustain such ordeals. Eyehategod, who were weaned on the blues and R&B sounds of their native New Orleans, imbue their feedback-driven shriek on bleak masterpiece Take As Needed for Pain with a groove that’s unique to the Crescent City (see also: Crowbar, Down).
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It’s also got a swing that few other regional forms can claim as their own. Southern sludge metal is a bit different from other forms of sludge, in that it’s a bit slower, murkier, darker and more fucked up. Enjoy our list of 10 Essential Sludge Metal Albums. But you should, absolutely, listen to these 10 records on your quest to consume all that is heavy. This is just a short list of some of those albums, by no means exhaustive. We’ve already celebrated the works of the mighty Neurosis, but the 20th anniversary of the band’s best album got us thinking about sludge metal in general, and the many incredible albums that have been released in the name of murky, menacing metal.