4 Insanely Heavy Bands To Get Your Head Banging

From its humble beginnings in England's Black Country, the metal genre has evolved into a hydra of obscure sub-genres. As bands continue to push the envelope in terms of how heavy they can go, we take a look at some of the more accomplished purveyors of brutality.

4. Dying Fetus

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With a name like Dying Fetus, bone-shattering heaviness is more or less guaranteed, and the trio from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, does not disappoint. Their latest outing, 2017’s Wrong One To Fuck With, is an exercise in sheer brutality, a veritable tour de force of blast beats, growled vocals and some truly menacing lyrics.

3. Blood Red Throne

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Norway may be best known for their contribution to the black metal genre, but the Scandinavian nation has delivered its fair share of formidable death metal acts, including Blood Red Throne. Formed by former Emperor bassist Tchort, BRT delivers a deadly cocktail of groove and intensity with an occasional nod to the band’s black metal roots via screeched vocals to complement Tchort’s devastating growl.

2. Cannibal Corpse

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One of the pioneers of the Florida death metal scene of the early 1990s, Cannibal Corpse has remained consistently heavy throughout its three-decade career. When original vocalist Chris Barnes (who went on to form Six Feet Under) left the band in 1995, many fans worried that the band would lose some of its trademark heaviness. However, the decidedly imposing George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher proved to be a worthy replacement, performing vocal duties on CC’s last ten albums. With album titles such as Eaten Back to Life, Tomb of the Mutilated and Spawn of the Wretched, it’s not difficult to see why this vicious juggernaut made it onto the list.

1. Behemoth

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By far my favourite band on this list, Poland’s Behemoth started out as a fairly standard black metal outfit back in 1991. But frontman Nergal had a different vision for his band, and the unholy beast that is Behemoth went on to spawn an entirely new genre that has become known as blackened death metal. Fusing the aesthetics and lyrical themes of black metal with the stylistic attributes of death metal, this musical hybrid has proven to be a match made in heaven…or should that be hell?

Behemoth’s critically acclaimed album The Satanist, which was released in 2015, has been hailed by the metal community as possibly the finest metal album of the 21st Century, and I tend to share this sentiment.