Heavy Rock
tagStarted 1970Peak 1972-1980Last big hit still active
Located in 1 route
Hard rock at its densest and most low-slung: thick, downtuned-leaning riffs, sludgier tempos, and a heavier low end that edges toward metal without fully committing. Cavernous drums, doom-tinged blues riffs, and an oppressive sonic weight. The bridge between hard rock's swing and metal's crush.
History
Coined for the heaviest end of early-70s hard rock, where Black Sabbath, Mountain, and Sir Lord Baltimore piled on volume and density beyond standard blues-rock. The term traveled with the proto-metal lineage, marking bands too riff-heavy for pop radio yet predating thrash and extreme metal. It seeded doom, stoner, and the broader heaviness vocabulary.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Come_(Sir_Lord_Baltimore_album)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadfan
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_(album)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Queen