Besides Electric Wizard.

And yes, I'm aware that this topic has been done before. But not since 2011. Different crowd.

Tad

Early Swans (for reasons different than Tad)

Manowar. Everyone else is a poser.

Nile

Demolition Hammer.

Yes, I am a grandad.

Black Sabbath.

Dude, everyone will come up with different bands because people perceive heaviness in a different way.
What is heavy? Is abrasive the same as heavy? Can a fast band even be heavy? Is djent heavier then grindcore? Is AC/DC heavier than Rhapsody? Isn't "The Thing That Should Not Be" the heaviest thing ever? Man, this has been discussed to death...

No shit. That's the point.

Darkthrone on the Panzerfaust album. The Hordes of Nebulah is the heaviest song I have ever heard. It's Black Sabbath + Celtic Frost on steroids.

EDIT: I'm also reminded of some stoner album that was heavier than a blue whale, but I can't recall its name. I think it had a mammoth or something on the cover. I might be mixing things up.

EDIT 2: I found them. It's Acid Mammoth. Not as heavy as I remembered, but that guitar sound is perfect.

Since many deserved classics are being brought up, I might as well throw in Hellhammer's Apocalyptic raids MLP. Oh, and Winter's Into darkness LP.

My candidates would be:

The Crown - Except for the last shitty album, there's just something relentless about these guys that almost gives me fatigue after listening to a couple of songs
Defloration
Postmorten (Ger)
Violation (Ger) - a shame these guys only produced two albums
and of course...Bolt Thrower

With or without stage costumes? With, probably Lordi or Gwar. Without, probably Crowbar.

Seconded.

A top contender imo.

This is the correct answer, particularly the live recordings such as "Public Castration is a Good Idea". It doesn't get heavier or more brutal/extreme than that.

And I have to say, this type of sound (similar to my pick) is my personal definition of "heavy". But I get it, everyone has a different interpretation of what constitutes "heavy". But if I played Manowar and then some Black Sabbath and then this for my parents, I'm guessing they'd say this was the "heaviest" and most offensive.

Probably either Winter or Cianide. That style of crusty Celtic Frost / Hellhammer infused doomy death metal is like taking a sledge hammer to the side of the head.

I honestly think most BDM isn't really all that heavy unless "heavy" just means "sonically dense". That entire genre is so hellbent on being heavy through downtuned guitars and chunky riffs that it ends up eschewing any atmosphere whatsoever and ends up neutering itself. It's just loud with little else. Not to mention the classic snare DONK is like, the least imposing thing ever when it's just banging over the other instruments.

What is "heavy" anyway? To most people it's something on the slower side, with emphasis on the low end.

But a lot of other people consider grindcore and black metal heavy too. So it's always going to be subjective.

I personally consider funeral doom and deathcore to be the heaviest shit there is. But like with anything, there are gems within a lot of genres that have the perfect low end, bassy heavy production. Best example i can think of right now - Autokrator - S/t

You gotta fucking throw in old Obituary into the discussion, I'm actually starting to wonder if Obituary is underrated, it seems everyone wants to jerk off Demilich and Incantation at all times(not that they both don't rule btw) but man Cause of Death is pretty much the heaviest fucking thing ever, uniquely nihilistic and absolutely defeating, but also insanely fucking intelligent.

Not intelligent whatsoever but I think Butchered at Birth by CC is obscenely fucking heavy and depraved, absolutely sociopathic sounding music, it's the shit.

Disembowelment and Nuclear Death are just the absolute most evil bands there are, just soul crushing beautiful music, if extreme metal is art, these are the first two that spring to mind as actually deserving of the term.

Exactly lol. People confuse fast or loud with heavy

Mid-80's Swans, when I first heard them (as a kid in the mid-80s) was like, pure and total unadulterated repetitive grinding NOISE that was all but unlistenable to us metalheads- even though we loved all the cutting edge thrash, hardcore, and early death metal stuff from that era. I didn't really get it then and it still doesn't really groove with me now, other than being the must extreme sounding thing ever put onto vinyl during that time period, that I'm aware of anyway.

I've heard some more recent stuff, Sindre Foss Skenke and Utarm for example, that is super dark heavy experimental ambient that is pretty heavy and extreme to my ears. Some of the down tempo stuff like YOB certainly qualifies as one of the heaviest pure metal stuff out there. In terms of raw noisy brutality, early Carcass is unsurpassed in its ability to blend walls of grinding noise into the death metal aesthetic though of course Carcass doesn't sound like that anymore. And tons of bands have tried to copy that sound, most of them not quite as successfully. Disembowlment however has that disturbing ambience about it that adds to the heaviness.

I never quite got into Nuclear Death either. The lyrics were nightmarishly disturbing but the sound was just...odd; that total locust-swarm buzzing guitar sound just didn't really do it for me as far as being "heavy." It was more weird and disturbing than heavy if that makes sense.

Glad we're in agreement about Disembowelment and I definitely agree about the first couple Carcass albums, those are way too heavy for the time, but Idk nuclear death to me is just impossibly heavy to me and I think it's one part due to the extremely dense nightmarish atmosphere but also I once said I think it's the only extreme metal that specifically sounds like an addict rotting away somewhere, and it just sounds so much more evil and negative to me because of that, it seems decidedly more real to me than a lot of extreme metal, and not even in the Chuck Schuldiner sense of talking about reality type thing, nuclear death and acid bath are really the two bands I've heard that seem to mirror the pain I've felt in my own life more than anyone else, it's really hard to describe I just see a lot of real life decay and it reminds me of personal experience of just living in my own filth and twisted thought processes, so I guess it's more personal with me lol

I don't entirely agree that those elements you mentioned shouldn't count (particularly when the riffs are still there, however buried) but point taken. If I were to discount those BDM bands I know of which are largely going for "sonic density", then I'd probably go with Immolation and Incantation instead. Not quite as thick and, to your point, more focused on sheer malevolence.

Interesting that you mention Grind there, because to me, one of the main differences between punk and metal, besides their riffing styles in general, is that punk generally isn't heavy to me. Hardcore--and thus grindcore--in particular is sonically violent, but usually doesn't have the deep bassy denseness I associate with metal. Metal is doomy and heavy--punk is thrashing and violent. I don't think punk could ever quite capture the same vibe as drone or doom metal, for instance. It's just not what it's meant for. But on the other hand, metal struggles to capture the same level of completely chaotic sonic violence that hardcore can achieve, outside of genres like thrash (and even then, thrash's emphasis on metal riffing makes it sound quite a bit different).

Early Loudness, going purely by riffs.

Celtic Frost - Monotheist.

But also generally any Funeral Doom (like Frowning) is heavy. Slow and heavy as fuck guitars.

Slowed-down Wasp is probably the heaviest thing ever in Metal. Acrobat knows what I'm talking about.

Depends on what you call heaviest. Some doom bands are definitely heavy af, just listen to Old Thunder by Ahab for example. Or even some Candlemass songs are heavy as hell. Then there's a different kind of heavy like Morbid Angel or Nile. Then there's stuff like Meshuggah which is oppressive and heavy af too.

Probably Suffocation, if we're talking entire discographies.

Honorable mention to Usurper - Twilight Dominion album; to my ears that's the epitome of "heavy".

If we're going just the guitar tone route then Sunn O)))
If the brutal route, probably Last Days of Humanity

Being able to play fast and still maintain great heaviness is the epitome of metal. So yeah the best of Suffocation is tough to beat in that arena.

Easy to overlook nowadays, but good old 'Tallica has had many moments of awesome heaviness.

Anaal Nathrakh.

Just wanna add something real quick about the term "heavy" given that you guys are talking about what is heavy: https://www.academia.edu/36429759/What_ ... etal_Heavy

This is the first and only academic study about the heaviness of heavy metal that I ever saw - at leats in philosophy.

You can also check some earlier version of it here too: https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2018/04/ ... tal-heavy/

See I'm like you. Even though I gave a bullshit answer above, I normally think of slower stuff like Doom when I think of heavy. Funeral - From These Wounds (the song) would be an example of something I think of when the term heavy is mentioned.

They're up there for me too. The thing is - there are also of Raw black metal/noise bands that are more abrasive, but AN for me combines the perfect amount of grind, death, abrasiveness and just a touch of those early albums being a little scary. It's unnerving stuff.

In terms of non-metal, nothing has impacted on the same level as Lingua Ignota.

Heavy for me is definitely squarely in the death/doom genre. Asphyx’s The Rack, Cianide, Coffins, Disembowelment, Tzompantli, Incantation’s Onward to Golgotha.

Heaviest band I’ve ever seen live was Suffocation. Pantsshittingly heavy, like being in the path of a plane landing.

ALMOST included Usurper on my list too. I'm especially fond of their first three full-lengths.

You're spot on!