Groove metal

Groove metal is a subgenre of heavy metal.^[1] It was often used to describe Pantera^[3] and Exhorder.^[4]

Characteristics and origins

Pantera's Cowboys from Hell album from 1990 was described as "groundbreaking" and "blueprint-defining" for the groove metal genre.^[5] Tommy Victor of Prong claims that the attitude of groove metal came from Bad Brains.^[6]

Geoffrey Himes of The Washington Post described the music in 1998, as a "marriage of hard rock with dance music and hip-hop"; and stated about groove metal: "This gives the loud, crunchy guitars a black-flavored dance pulse and gives the wailing vocals the punchy rhythms of rap and funk. The masters of this new sub-genre is Korn."^[1] Other groove metal bands have incorporated thrash metal,^[7] hardcore punk,^[8] and industrial music.^[9] Ian Christe credits Sepultura's Chaos A.D. and Pantera for creating the death metal-derived music of groove metal and Lamb Of God for creating thrash metal-derived music of groove metal influencing later groups in the genre during the 1990s.^[2]

Groups

The style has been associated with bands such as Lamb of God,^[10] Spiritual Beggars,^[11] Soulfly,^[12] Gojira,^[13][14] Throwdown,^[15] Trivium,^[15] Machine Head,^[16] and Byzantine.^[17]

To the contrary some bands have gone to some length to avoid being labelled as a groove metal band. Veteran thrash metal band Annihilator left Roadrunner Records in 1993 specifically to avoid being caught up in the groove-metal trend being promoted by the label. Subsequently, the Canadian band have not played in North America ever since their departure from the label.^[18]

Notes

References

• Christe, Ian (2003). Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. HarperCollins. ISBN 0380811278