Sleep drug smoker It's legendarily heavy. On any halfway decent sound system, it will make your ribcage vibrate. It's like being slowly assaulted by a massage chair. In 2015, guitar world named it the heaviest album ever recorded. “You definitely won't find anything heavier,” wrote Ethan Varian.
On November 6, for no particular reason, I was in the mood to accept that challenge.
I wanted a riff that would flatter me. I listened to 26 extremely heavy albums, recommended by friends and strangers. Four challengers made it to a semi-final round, where I heard them followed by drug smoker. One album was so heavy that I listened to it three times in a row.
And I have to say: I have found something heavier.
But to start, we have to discuss heavy like an aesthetic. Heavy is somehow not the same as brutal either aggressive. The point is to get beat up: rhabdomyolysis, osteolysis, getting crushed on the pavement.
Heavy is somehow not the same as brutal either aggressive
drug smoker It's the standard I'm measuring against. It's such an intense album that if I'm listening to it drug smoker, That's pretty much all I'm doing. The 2022 version of the album, a remaster for streaming services, consists of two songs: “Dopesmoker” and “Hot Lava Man.”
“Dopesmoker” the song is over an hour long. It is characterized by a forceful megalithic riff, which varies slightly with each repetition. It is possibly the loudest minimalist composition I have ever heard. The guitars are tuned two steps lower than standard tuning, making them sound thicker. There is a lot of bass that often echoes the guitar and makes it sing. even heavier.
The song moves like a granite statue coming to life. The guitar, bass and vocals move together like an anthem. It takes eight minutes to reach the iconic first line: “Exit life with bong in hand.” The voices sound like singing. The drums are embedded in the mix (the cymbals are the most noticeable) and are quite simple.
“Drug smoker” is thick. It's also slow. That's what makes it so visceral. The guitar solos, while excellent, aren't really responsible for the heaviness. They mostly make the riffs heavier in comparison.
If I had to isolate a common musical lineage between all the albums, it would be Black Sabbath. (Hey?)
During my quest to match or exceed this standard for heavythe most common suggestions I received were from Electric Wizard dopetrone, Bongripper's Satan worshiping doom, and boris Amplifier worship. I left all the suggestions I could in a Spotify playlist and made a note of the ones I would need to listen to on Bandcamp. Some bands, like Sunn O))) and The Body, had multiple entries.
Listening to the 26 albums I collected was a slow process because only I'm listening. This was not background music. I usually sat down and focused on one album a day.
If I had to isolate a musical lineage common to all the albums in contention, it would be Black Sabbath. (Duh?) There's a sort of purist quality to Sabbath worship, particularly in Church of Misery and the stoner metal subgenre. One of the other albums under consideration was by Godflesh. street cleanerwhich was surprising in this context; he was surrounded by material that he had clearly inspired. The other two bands I would point to as formative for the pursuit of heaviness are Melvins and Sunn O))), which was the only band that scared my cat.
The heavier tracks I heard during my search were aggressively anti-commercial; It's hard to imagine them being played on corporate radio. black boned angel Verdun It is a song that lasts almost 52 minutes. Khanate’s self-titled album seems to have no interest in concepts like “rhythms,” “song structure,” and “sanity.” Shallow North Dakota mafia wheel It was forceful.
It was refreshing to hear music that felt insistent on itself as an experience.
Famously, drug smoker It itself was not released initially because it had no commercial prospects. London Records had promised sleep total creative control and then, upon listening to the album, he put it away. (This was one of the tensions that led to the band's breakup).
The slowness that makes the music really heavy contrasts with TikTok music, which usually speeds up if it's not already upbeat. It was refreshing to hear music that felt insistent on itself as an experience.
From all my listening, four contenders emerged: Boris Amp Worshiphell Living in RoadburnBongripper's Empty, and The Body / The collaboration of You Freed from Love/You, whom I have always hated.
It seemed possible that I would find that drug smoker it was the pinnacle by default: a testament to an aesthetic that no one was trying to achieve anymore. But Empty It's from 2024, Living in Roadburn was released in 2018, and Freed from love / You, whom I have always hated It is from the year 2015.
This left me with hell. Living in Roadburn
To get to the semi-finals, I listened to each album in a row with drug smokerwhich made judging surprisingly easy. Amp Worship, Empty and Freed from love They were eliminated almost immediately.
This left me with hell. Living in Roadburn. It's an odd choice since it's basically a live version of Hell's self-titled album, but it's decidedly heavier, particularly the songs “Subodin” and “Machikitos.” This may be partly because the live songs work differently than the studio versions, not least because there is a band instead of Matthew S. Williams, who records as MSW, doing all the parts himself.
Living in Roadburn Not only is it heavier than Hell's namesake; It is also heavier than Drug smoker.
So what does it represent? road burn heavier? For starters, the guitars are literally tuned lower; I think about lowering A flat instead of lowering C. And although the songs in road burn Although we often use repetition, there is also variation in tempo, which usually slows down (“Helmzmen” stops). There are more confusing comments.
But the deciding factor is the drums, which are much higher in the mix in road burn that in drug smoker, which means I can feel the bass and the tom. On “Machitikos” in particular, drum beats underline and thicken a guitar solo.
For guitar purists, my verdict may be suspect. After all, I'm taking into account battery in a based on riffs half. However, there are a limited number of ways to get heavywhich makes the drums equivalent to the full-body swimsuits that the Olympics banned for making swimmers too fast. road burn It would probably still be heavier with the battery lower in the mix. probably – but the drums make it decisive.
Listen to both albums back to back with good speakers. (Headphones won't do the job here.) Once you feel road burn on your sternum, I don't think there's room for discussion. Spending two hours listening to music as an activity, without doing anything else, is something people should do more often. Music is still powerful, if you're willing to pay attention.
