Heaviest album Ever?

I'm in agreement with a a lot of people here that think "Heaviness" is more that just a low end guitar tone or a loud production,  for me what makes something Heavy is in how one strings together a handful of notes or creates a mammoth rhythm that overwhelms your senses and forces you down....down....down....further into a pool of quivering goo!  That's why for me bands that just sustain a low end bass tone (a la Sunn) aren't all that heavy to me - unless they actually go somewhere with it.  A lot of good albums have been mentioned but I still don't think any of them compare to my first choice: Swans - Public Castration is a Good Idea...that album is one of the most punishing recordings ever put to tape, it's a non stop battery of audial oppression, I beg for mercy yet it doesn't stop!!!! There would be no Godflesh, or Neurosis or Southern Lord records if it wasn't for the influence of Swans and their early recordings. 

a few other albums I'd personally rank among the heaviest:
Flower Travellin Band - satori
Bedemon - child of darkness
Angel Witch - Sinister History (Demos)
Killing Joke - s/t
Einstürzende Neubauten - Strategies Against Architecture Vol. I
Laibach - slovenska akropola
Swans - Filth + Cop
Glenn Branca - Symphony No 1(Tonal Plexus)
Celtic Frost - Morbid Tales
Kilslug - answer the call
Napalm Death - scum (huge evolutionary step of blending speed with super heavy sound)
Godflesh - s/t
Saint Vitus - pretty much everything they released
Trouble - first 3 albums
Discharge - hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing
Amebix - everything but especially Monolith
Crossed Out - discography
Neanderthal - complete fighting music
Dystopia - everything
Rottrevore - iniquitous
Autopsy - mental funeral
Disembowelment - transcendence into the peripheral
Coalesce - give them rope
Harvey Milk - my love is higher + courtesy and goodwill towards men
Halo - everything
Burning Witch - everything
Black Mass of Absu - everything

I'd also say Magma has some of the heaviest bass lines I've ever heard....!


I'd also say for my money, Magma - De Futura is one of the heaviest songs ever recorded,


Edited by mithrandir - October 01 2008 at 21:07

Yeah that was me. The song was User-Maat-Re... one of the heaviest songs ever written!

Modern metal has plenty of distortion and loudness, not to be confused with heaviness which is dependent on a specific guitar tone, but again not exclusively that. Indeed you may not even need guitar to portray heaviness, it is more attributable to certain elements of music falling in place.  Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, Vol4 and Dehumanizer take a lot of beating though doom metal bands from the 90s and onwards are more and more able to approach that kind of heaviness.  Like others have said, extreme metal is usually brutal rather than heavy but if you want some HEAVY death metal then the first Suffocation album is where it's at. Overkill's The Years of Decay has some seriously heavy riffs, notably in Evil Never Dies, unusual for thrash.   

Edited by rogerthat - October 06 2008 at 06:26

chopper wrote: I can't listen to much of this kind of music - gives me a headache - but you have to love these bands and their bands. I mean, you just know what sort of music a band called "Disembowelment" is going to play.

Eh, Disembowelment is actually very depressive, expansive, beautiful - yes, I insist  - death-doom. They have grind influences but if you're thinking Cannibal Corpse - who are not grind anyway - then Disembowelment sound nothing like them. 

I wonder how much Darkthrone paid for that little plug. 

+1 for any melvins reference.

Heavy , noisy and distorted all have different meanings. But I must state that KC 's Red at high volume has this deep , gloomy, thunderous and over the edge afterburn that is hard to fathom. Its almost spooky .

Gojira

Some comments from my reviews....

Beyond heavy. This will burst your spleen. 

and

“Gojira have chunks of bands like Riverside in their stool.”

I just listened to it again last night and I have to say that, although they're not extreme and even arguably not metal, The Sword - Age of Winters is REALLY heavy. Great stuff.

rogerthat wrote: chopper wrote: I can't listen to much of this kind of music - gives me a headache - but you have to love these bands and their bands. I mean, you just know what sort of music a band called "Disembowelment" is going to play. Eh, Disembowelment is actually very depressive, expansive, beautiful - yes, I insist  - death-doom. They have grind influences but if you're thinking Cannibal Corpse - who are not grind anyway - then Disembowelment sound nothing like them.

indeed, funny how the guy completely writes off a band due to their name, Disembowelment is one of a kind a very experimental band that so many bands that followed in their wake owe a lot to, probably the first band to ever use blastbeats over a super slow doomy riff,