Every time I listen to Metallica's St. Anger I can help but feel frustrated, for this could have been a great album if not so long/with shitty snare drum/etc...
So I'm looking for similar groovy metal with raw production and heavy bass lines.
When I say raw production I mean more like live takes or what you can hear on pre-80's records (i. e. without 4 guitars on both sides and drum sounding like a machine); not black metal prod where you can't hear a thing.

Thanks!

I think Queen's first 2 or 3 albums were fairly rawly produced, yeah, they might not be metal but they were pre '80s. The albums are Queen, Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack. Not sure if this helps, but it was the first thing I thought of

On topic, I'm not sure. There's a lot of jam style rock from the 60s and 70s like early Grand Funk, but that's not really metal. Maybe a Groove metal/Doom metal hybrid would work? bands like A Waste of Talent, Bang-Utot, Blackworld, Closed Eye Visuals, Debase, Deep Desolation, Dirt Communion, Erode, Manticore, Mister Bones, Redrum Inc., Serpentcult, The Cursed, Violent Halo, Durgus, Matthias, Probot, Shafott, etc.?

Off topic, I always found it strange that the song Sheer Heart Attack wasn't actually on the album titled Sheer Heart Attack. Wiki says it was written about the same time, but I'd have thought that if they didn't put it on the album of that name that they'd rename it or something. *shrugs*

When I hear Frantic, I automatically think of High On Fire.

Ashbury, I don't know if it's exactly what you want, it's more fantasy/prog oriented, with acoustic passages that make me think more of Metallica's black album, but lots of country-ish hard rock too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Odlp8Gvso&feature=related
here's another song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAvNdtUjZGE&feature=related

Ashbury are awesome...one of my favourite bands...

if you like that check out Winterhawk - Revival...great melodic prog rock/heavy metal, reminds me a bit of early Rush...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cX480Cwnhg