Groove metal, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Thrash metal 1983
NWOBHM plus hardcore punk: palm-muted riffs, brutal tempos and lyrics about war and society. The first truly extreme branch.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Slayer - Reign in Blood. Twenty-nine minutes that redefined the word extreme.
Slayer, Reign in Blood (1986) - 3 What you asked about
Groove metal 1990
Thrash slowed to a groove that hits you in the chest: syncopated riffs, mid-tempo drums, barked vocals.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power. Dimebag's guitar tone is an institution.
Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power (1992) - 4 Where to go next
Djent 2007
The name imitates the sound: seven- or eight-string guitars, heavily compressed palm mutes and polyrhythms. Meshuggah built the vocabulary; a generation of forum users named it.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Assembled from the tree: every genre Groove metal descends from, in order. Groove metal has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.