Ok, I thing i never understood groove metal started with something like cowboys from hell where it was actually groove and kickass and becomes something like later pantera and other groove metal band like lamb of god, machine head ect. and become something like slow down crappy version of thrash with shitty vocals trying to be death metal but failing. If i wanted thrash i would listen to good thrash not this post thrash stuff. My point is, is their any groove metal albums that actually groovy and kickass besides cowboys from hell.

Depending on who you talk to, the first groove record was Slaughter in the Vatican by Exhorder rather than Cowboys from Hell.

Oh i didn't know that. Never heard of them. I just checked them out. A lot better then the groove metal bands i heard before. They are kinda cool. Though not really what i am looking for. I am starting to think the cowboys from hell album is not groove metal as it sounds so different from everything else i heard that's consider groove metal.

I've never liked the term Groove metal in particular. It makes it seem like the rhythmic element in music shouldn't be important in metal. But anyways, there certainly are a lot of sterile and really lame post-thrash bands out there. I can't think of many bands in this genre that I really like but off the top of my head I do spin Konkhra every now and then. Boring sometimes but they also have a lot of undeniably killer riffs.

Exhorder were always infinitely more thrash than groove for me, while Pantera were more groove than thrash. It's kinda like how Symphony X is heavy metal with progressive influences and Dream Theater is prog with metal influences.

Yeah that makes sense. I always thought as groove metal as the metal genre that inspired the false metal genres (nu/core bands) though not fully sure on that. But most of it seems to suck and be very boring. Not something i want to head bang to while in my car. lol.

But they are, although there are still some thrash riffs in there, it's just because of the southern vibe that they sound so different from a band like Machine Head (old) or Lamb Of God (although Log did sometimes managed to capture that southern vibe)

As much as I love Cowboys From Hell, I've always enjoyed Far Beyond Driven and The Great Southern Trendkill more. If you're not a fan of Pantera's later material, I don't think you'll find many, if any other "groove" metal bands enjoyable. A vast majority of said "groove" metal bands nowadays seem to go for that later Pantera sound.

Yeah guess its not my thing.

Really it is a pretty shitty descriptor. Black Sabbath grooves. All sorts of metal grooves. I know people who "hate groovy songs", and they generally are referring to stuff that has a variation in note...length? I think that is the right word - I mean as in 8ths, 16ths, 32nds, etc.

As such though, I hear a lot of bands that are only kinda similar referred to as groove - it basically has come to mean "slower thrash" I guess, but I'd argue there is a real sludge influence in a lot of it. White Zombie are often referred to as groove metal I find, and certainly put out some cool stuff.

replace the thrash part of groove metal with death and trepalium becomes an example of very good groove

No not really. I always liked Pantera but I absolutely hate the wave of bands that they influenced. Also the term "groove metal" is utterly pointless and unnecessary to me.

The only groove metal i've ever liked is Pantera, Lamb of God and Chimaira. The rest of it sounds like metal for knuckledraggers.

I believe that the main problem with groove metal is that bands in the genre tend to rely purely on heaviness and highly distorted chugging, while paying little attention to riffs themselves, which is a deadly mistake, considering that metal is almost entirely built around them. Now, I do like my fair share of Pantera records and believe that Exhorder's The Law is quite cool (I won't count Slaughter in the Vatican for this discussion, as it's almost purely a thrash album, and an awesome one at that), but beyond that, yes, it's very difficult to find decent groove metal bands.

I've never been a fan of what is called groove metal, for the reasons the OP gives - it doesn't really do what it suggests it might. When it comes to enjoyable grooves, I tend to really enjoy death-metal which isn't afraid to use a few.

Yeah, they've got some pretty good stuff. For me, the problem with Trepalium is that their good songs are really fucking good, and their bad songs are really fucking bad. Kind of a polarizing band.

Also, if you talk to somebody who says this, ignore them completely. Slaughter in the Vatican is thrash through and through. I've never heard their second album, so maybe they go groove there, but certainly not on their debut. Also, if anybody says Pantera ripped off Exhorder and that's why they changed their sound/got famous, please kick them in the testicles for me.

Well, it isn't, really. It's just a ggroovier and chunkier version of the stuff Pantera was doing on power Metal. Remember that they started out as a completely different band...they didn't just turn "groove" overnight; the shift is really quite gradual.

Anyway, I almost consider Pungent Stench's Club Mondo Bizarre a groove album, and it has its moments. Check out the song "CHoked Just for a Joke". I'm also kind of a fan of mid-period Prong. Cleansing has some pretty terrible moments but more upbeat tunes like "WHose Fist is this Anyway" really kick.

To me, 'groove metal' is like one of those awful umbrella words like 'extreme metal'. Ugh. I don't know how it came to be a genre in itself.

Isn't the latest Decapitated album something along the lines of groove metal?
*hides*

Dutch band Silicon Head succeeded in combining groove with atmosphere, doom and death. They were a good example that not all groove metal is 'dumb down' metal. Also, Invocator's 'Dying to Live' is a perfect example of a technical thrash band turning towards groove combining the best of both to a very interesting and 'clever' piece of metal. I like it as much as their previous classic albums, and it sounds like a natural development for them. Not something forced. The vocals could have been better, but on the other hand I can't really imagine what other kind of vocals would have suited better.

They do and they don't. It's not as neck breakingly furious as Slaughter in the Vatican, and there are many slower moments, but most of the time it's still thrash riffing. That and the album actually came out after Pantera released Vulgar Display, so anybody that says that Pantera "stole" Exhorder's sound is just kinda dumb.

Not really.

The people who hate the name groove metal should blame Pantera for calling themselves "power groove" and the music press for dropping the "power" part when talking about similar bands.

Is that suppose to be their version of fusing power metal and thrash?

"Post-thrash" is a better term to use for that type of thing, and there are occasional flirtations with metalcore as well (Chimaira comes to mind, as does the first Machine Head album). "Groove metal" is about as meaningful and accurate a term as "nu-metal", which is to say that it reeks of marketing department shenanigans.

As for the last Decapitated, that was more or less a deathcore release.

Well Phil's vocal style at the time was very much Halford with gravel, and The Will to Survive from the Cowboys demo was quite power metal, so I'm fairly certain that the "power groove" term was more for the Cowboys material than what they eventually morphed into musically.

It was. I should have mentioned that in my earlier comment.

That makes sense because there cowboy stuff is actually really good. After that it seems like they scrapped that idea and started being kinda crappy in my opinion, but groove metal seems like a bad name for there other stuff and other groove bands. Seems like the media only calls it that because of the cowboy stuff and couldn't find a better name for the rest.

I think the reason you like CFH is because it wasn't full on groove... it had alot of basic thrash element to it (the good parts)... Vulgar & more so Far Beyond Driven were Pantera's first full on groove albums I think... all credit to them, they were great at what they did... it just isn't for me...

I actually think "groove metal" is a great term for the sub-genre... in my experience anything with that label I know to keep away from... horrible boring thing it is... almost destroyed overkill in the 90's...

And don't forget it almost killed anthrax too.

Ironically, it's a rare but relatively successful mix of groove metal and extreme metal. To my eyes it is anyways.

Ktulu - Orden Genético (1994)

Prong - Cleansing (1994) (+ a good dose of industrial)

Overdose - Progress of Decadence (1993)

But to be honest, it's hard to imagine better groove than Exhorder's "The Law", Pantera and Sepultura "Chaos A.D."

Exhorder's "Slaughter in the Vatican" isn't a groove metal album but the guitar sound is. I've read in the interview that the guys were a lot into old-school hardcore punk and originally wish to make "SITV" more crossover/thrash album; but it came with "death metal production" though and that's why the album sounds so brutal. Honestly, it's one of the most brutal metal album ever!

Talking about groove, how do you think, is 1.42-1.46 of this famous song from 1980 (probably because Anthrax did a cover) a proto-groove metal riff? And what about "Zero the Hero" that came from 1983?

Slaughter in the Vatican is the most insane thrash album I've heard this side of Darkness Descends. Even when they do slow down on that album it still sounds heavy as shit.

Yeah I always thought Slaughter in the Vatican was a thrash record. The second one I've never heard so can't comment.

Also on the production for first one.



lol

Slaughter in the Vatican and Tapping the Vein have always been fighting in my mind for the title of most brutal thrash album ever. It's one of the reasons why I get so irrationally and disproportionately angry when people call it groove metal. They only explanation for such a claim is simply that they have never listened to it.

I can't be the only person that likes 90s Overkill...

BastardHead's reviews of a couple of the 90s Overkill albums got me curious to hear what they sounded like.

Fuck you BastardHead for getting me to listen to that atrocious crap.

You're not. While I'll openly concede that The Killing Kind onward is by and large groove metal, or at least for the sake of the conversation in this thread heavily influenced by it, it's still quality stuff to me that has conviction to it and is not without its moments of hearkening back to their thrash beginnings here and there. Part of those songwriting decisions may have been due to the limitations of Comeau's and Marino's capabilities but none of it feels half-assed or mailed in. BastardHead's reviews make good points and I can understand why he and Subrick and others don't care for that period of the band, but it's a far more respectable career path than several of their peers took that decade. We all know the names. Not to deviate too far off-topic, but has anyone here since Overkill live during this period between Cannavino's and Gant's departures and before Linsk came onboard? How well was the older material pulled off and was either guitarist clearly the lead guy of the two?

You mean the exact same path of slowing down, focusing more on stomps and grooves, and catering to what was popular at the time? The only thing Overkill did better than Anthrax and other contemporaries was that they never lost their attitude, just their songwriting ability.

Definitely get a stoner/doom vibe from that song rather then a groove vibe.