Groove Metal

The wrecking ball

The heaviest swing in the thrash family, groove metal, was pulled out of thrash at the turn of the 1990s and hung from the crane of a mid tempo, and it takes the palm muted riff, tunes it down, chops it into syncopated blocks that slam against the kick drum and lets the whole weight fly on its chain. A jackhammer is faster. A wrecking ball brings down more wall. The vocal shouts, the solo stays and speed is the only thing thrown out.

What separates it from thrash metal is where the weight falls. The thrash riff sprints ahead of the beat, while the groove riff waits, hits late and leaves a hole the drums fill, a bouncy, unconventional rhythm that makes a room move instead of spin. Hardcore punk runs in its blood as much as metal does, and Bad Brains are counted among its pioneers. The tuning dropped with it.

Sepultura made the whole conversion on one record. Cut at Rockfield Studios in Wales with Andy Wallace producing and released by Roadrunner in September 1993, Chaos A.D. traded speed for groove on purpose, tuned half its songs down to D for the first time in the band's life and recorded "Kaiowas" in the ruins of Chepstow Castle. The old velocity was demolished. Nobody asked for it back.

Groove metal's three cities

The family tree has three roots. Formed in New Orleans in 1985 and fed on hardcore punk, metal, jazz, funk, blues and Mardi Gras music, the band called Exhorder recorded its first demo in the summer of 1986, and the writers Axl Rosenberg and Christopher Krovatin traced the style back to it and to Prong. The New York trio walked out of crossover and released Beg to Differ in March 1990. Four months later the style became impossible to miss.

The blow came from Texas. Produced by Terry Date and released by Atco in July 1990, Pantera's Cowboys from Hell is the album critics credit with codifying groove metal, and Far Beyond Driven smashed its way to number one on the Billboard 200 in 1994. Oakland answered with Machine Head, White Zombie carried the groove onto the charts, and Metallica bolted it onto "Sad but True" in 1991.

The borders leak everywhere. With few rigid walls, the style lets industrial, death metal and hardcore in, which is why Fear Factory and Gojira turn up under it, and it handed its downtuned bounce to nu metal and metalcore, while played slower and dirtier it runs into sludge. The second wave of groove metal bands broke in the 2000s with Lamb of God, Chimaira and DevilDriver. It has not stopped swinging since, from Orbit Culture in Sweden to Lost Society in Finland.

Where to start

Eight groove metal albums, each one a heavier swing of the same ball.

• Prong Beg to Differ Epic, 1990

  Released four months ahead of Cowboys from Hell, a New York trio's disciplined thrash with Bad Brains in its blood, and in Tommy Victor's words the first groove metal record.

• Pantera Vulgar Display of Power Atco, 1992

  Terry Date and Vinnie Paul co-producing, the riff pushed harder than on Cowboys from Hell, and 78 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200.

• Sepultura Chaos A.D. Roadrunner, 1993

  Paulo Jr.'s first album as the band's dedicated bassist, number 32 on the Billboard 200 and a record the first nu metal bands, Korn among them, took notes from.

• Machine Head Burn My Eyes Roadrunner, 1994

  Oakland's disorder, the Los Angeles riots and the Waco siege in the lyrics, Colin Richardson producing, and Roadrunner's best selling debut until Slipknot in 1999.

• Fear Factory Demanufacture Roadrunner, 1995

  Industrial metal with groove in the engine, a concept record of one man against a machine state, and Burton C. Bell swinging between extreme and clean vocals.

• Lamb of God Ashes of the Wake Epic/Prosthetic, 2004

  The major label debut of the Richmond band, number 27 on the Billboard 200, with songs aimed at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Gojira From Mars to Sirius Listenable, 2005

  A French concept album about a dead planet dragged back to life, "Flying Whales" at its heart, and a place in Decibel's Hall of Fame.

• Orbit Culture Nija Seek & Strike, 2020

  The Swedish four at their hardest, in Niklas Karlsson's words a fist on the skull that forces the listener to the ground.