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Heavy Metal Thunder Sludge Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Doom Metal Sludge Metal

Sludge Metal

Doom played by people who came out of hardcore and are still furious about it. Abrasive, feedback-soaked, unpleasant in the best way.

Active years
1991 – present
Origin
USA (New Orleans)
Family
Doom Metal
Bands here
16

Before you press play

Explicit content

Graphic lyrics and artwork are a defining feature of this genre rather than an occasional accident — which of violence, gore or sex depends on the band. Worth knowing before you put it on in a room with other people in it.

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Leviathan Mastodon, 2004

    The widest door in. Another Moby-Dick concept album, played with prog's ambition and sludge's weight, and Brann Dailor drums like he is being paid per note.

    Listen to Leviathan

  2. Red Album Baroness, 2007

    Sludge with the misery replaced by something almost triumphant. Twin guitar harmonies, southern melody, and no interest in sounding filthy.

    Listen to Red Album

  3. Odd Fellows Rest Crowbar, 1998

    The heaviest band in New Orleans at their most melodic. Kirk Windstein writes riffs that move at walking pace and sings about failure without self-pity.

    Listen to Odd Fellows Rest

  4. Take as Needed for Pain Eyehategod, 1993 The landmark

    The genre's defining record and its least welcoming. Feedback left in, tempo dragged behind the beat on purpose, and lyrics about addiction that are not metaphorical. Placed last: this is where sludge goes, not where you start.

    Listen to Take as Needed for Pain

What it sounds like

Feedback, and someone genuinely furious. Sludge takes doom's tempo and tuning and adds hardcore punk's vocal delivery and its refusal to sound competent: guitars are drenched in feedback and deliberately ugly, the bass is filthy, and the singer screams rather than sings. Songs lurch and stumble rather than roll. Where doom is stately and death-doom is mournful, this is bad-tempered and abrasive, and the New Orleans records that defined it sound like the heat and the poverty they came out of. Nothing here is pretty and nothing is meant to be. Riffs are often built from just two or three chords held far too long, and the vocals are mixed so far forward that the discomfort is unavoidable. This is the least polite music on the site.

  • Heaviness 5 out of 5
  • Speed 2 out of 5
  • Aggression 4 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 4 out of 5
  • Melody 2 out of 5

Where the name came from

'Sludge' evokes thickness, murkiness, and filth — an accurate metaphor for the genre's crushing, feedback-drenched sound rooted in New Orleans' sweltering heat and decaying urban landscape. Eyehategod popularised the term through the early 1990s.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Eyehategod USA
  • Crowbar USA
  • Mastodon USA
  • Acid Bath USA
  • Thou USA

And 11 more

  • Down USA
  • Grief USA
  • Buzzov•en USA
  • Weedeater USA
  • Iron Monkey UK
  • Sourvein USA
  • Baroness USA
  • Kylesa USA
  • Harvey Milk USA
  • Black Tusk USA
  • Death After Birth Philippines

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

What it led to

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.