Groove Metal
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The pit-stomp core of the family: thick, down-tuned guitars chugging syncopated, palm-muted riffs around 90-130 BPM, snapped to a hard-accented backbeat with pinch-harmonic squeals and squealing bends as punctuation. Drums favor groove-locked half-time grooves, double-bass bursts under the riff rather than constant blast, and dramatic stop-start breakdowns engineered to bounce. Vocals are an aggressive shouted/barked mid-range with occasional clean or melodic lifts, sitting over a scooped, percussive guitar tone and a punchy, audible bass. The feel is heavy, swung, and physical rather than fast.
History
Groove metal was forged in the American South: Pantera's Cowboys from Hell (1990) and especially Vulgar Display of Power (1992) recast Phil Anselmo's bark and Dimebag Darrell's squeal-laden, mid-tempo riffing as a new template, while New Orleans' Exhorder had sketched the bounce a year earlier. Machine Head's Bay Area debut Burn My Eyes (1994, Roadrunner) and Sepultura's Roots (1996) globalized it, and White Zombie and Prong added industrial-tinged groove. The torch passed to the New Wave of American Heavy Metal — Lamb of God (Ashes of the Wake, 2004), DevilDriver, Chimaira, and Damageplan — cementing groove metal as the backbone riff style of 21st-century heavy metal.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- AllMusic — Groove Metal style page
- Encyclopaedia Metallum (Metal Archives)
- Loudwire — Machine Head 'Burn My Eyes' / Pantera retrospectives
- Revolver — 'Ashes of the Wake' feature (Mark Morton)