 | | Like many influential bands, Helmet were born out of an unusual set of influences. Oregon-born guitarist and founder Page Hamilton had actually moved to New York City to study jazz, but found inspiration in the late '80s through post-punk acts Sonic Youth, Killing Joke, and Big Black, and envisioned a group that combined then-unusual tunings (particularly dropped D) with uneven and jazz-like time signatures and harmonies. |
 | | Nirvana may have been the band that put an entire generation in flannel, and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden both sold a lot more records, but Mudhoney were truly the band that made the '90s grunge rock movement possible. |
 | | Hailing from Palm Desert, CA, Kyuss (pronounced "kai-uss") has become something like a heavy metal equivalent to the Velvet Underground. |
 | | Clutch combined elements of funk, Led Zeppelin, and metal with vocals inspired by Faith No More. Formed in 1991 in Germantown, MD, the group included Neil Fallon (vocals), Tim Sult (guitar), Dan Maines (bass), and Jean-Paul Gaster (drums). |
 | | Formed from the ashes of stoner rock icons Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age reunited the group's singer/guitarist Josh Homme, drummer Alfredo Hernandez, and bassist Nick Oliveri along with new guitarist/keyboardist Dave Catching. |
 | | In many ways, Alice in Chains was the definitive heavy metal band of the early '90s. Drawing equally from the heavy riffing of post-Van Halen metal and the gloomy strains of post-punk, the band developed a bleak, nihilistic sound that balanced grinding hard rock with subtly textured acoustic numbers. |
 | | Soundgarden made a place for heavy metal in alternative rock. Their fellow Seattle rockers Green River may have spearheaded the grunge sound, but they relied on noise rock in the vein of the Stooges. |
 | | Tool's greatest breakthrough was to meld dark underground metal with the ambition of art rock. Although Metallica wrote their multi-sectioned, layered songs as if they were composers, they kept their musical attack ferociously at street level. |
 | | With their fusion of heavy metal, funk, hip-hop, and progressive rock, Faith No More has earned a substantial cult following. |
 | | Southern California's Fu Manchu began crafting heavy, psychedelic-tinged rock in 1990 with their debut single, "Kept Between Trees. |
 | | Primus is all about Les Claypool; there isn't a moment on any of their records where his bass isn't the main focal point of the music, with his vocals acting as a bizarre side-show. |
 | | Guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike, bass player George Rice, and drummer Des Kensel formed High on Fire in 1999, following the collapse of Pike's previous band, doom metal titans Sleep. |
 | | During his time in the seminal hardcore band the Misfits, vocalist Glenn Danzig displayed a fascination with outlandish, graphic, often gory imagery; in forming the more heavy metal-oriented band Samhain, Danzig's lyrics delved into typical metal subject matter, but took the concept of darkness to an extreme. |
 | | Not to be confused with the Canadian heavy metal band from the late '80s, named simply Sword, the Sword are a retro-metal four-piece hailing from -- of all places -- the singer/songwriter oasis of Austin, Texas. |
 | | One of the first punk-metal fusion bands, Corrosion of Conformity (C.O.C. for short) were formed in North Carolina by guitarist Woody Weatherman during the early '80s. |
 | | Often referred to as the "heaviest band in the universe," England's Electric Wizard have consistently redefined the preconceived thresholds of a detuned guitar chord with their peerless doom metal achievements -- this despite an often interpersonally troubled, if musically triumphant, career. |
 | | Perhaps the ultimate stoner rock band, Northern California trio Sleep had a career that wafted in and out of focus from within their self-mandated cloud of marijuana smoke. |
 | | Atlanta-based sludge/stoner/alternative metal outfit Mastodon formed in 1999 around the talents of guitarist Bill Kelliher, drummer Bränn Dailor, bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, and guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds. |
 | | Where many of their Seattle-based contemporaries dealt in reconstructed Black Sabbath and Stooges riffs, Screaming Trees fused '60s psychedelia and garage rock with '70s hard rock and '80s punk. |
 | | Until Nine Inch Nails crossed over to the mainstream, Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base. |
 | | Deftones were one of the first groups to alternate heavy riffs and screamed vocals with more ethereal music and hushed singing -- spawning a fair amount of imitators in their wake. |
 | | Rising out of the expansive early '90s thrash metal landscape, New York's Prong carved a niche all their own with their minimalist urban take on the genre. |
 | | Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores, and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. |
 | | Although often lumped in with the "Seattle Movement" of the early '90s (due to their sound, look, and attitude), the all-female punk band L7 hailed originally from Los Angeles. |
 | | For metalheads who thought bands like W.A.S.P. and Mötley Crüe just weren't menacing or heavy enough, White Zombie was the perfect antidote for a period of time during the mid- to late '90s, as they fused B-horror movie visuals and subject matter with heavy music and growled vocals. |
 | | Heavy metal rockers that compose Orange Goblin are Martyn Millard (bass), Ben Ward (vocals), Joe Hoari (guitar), Pete O'Mally (guitar), and Chris Turner (drums), and together these fine bandmates compose the harsh doom rock sounds similar to the likes of Mammoth Volume, Clawfinger, and Kyuss. |
 | | Down is an all-star heavy metal side project whose original lineup consisted of members from Pantera (singer Phil Anselmo), Corrosion of Conformity (guitarist Pepper Keenan), and Crowbar (guitarist Kirk Windstein, bassist Todd Strange, and drummer Jimmy Bower). |
 | | Quite a few side projects containing members of renowned Seattle-based rock bands appeared through the '90s. |
 | | Retro-rock visionaries Monster Magnet spent much of the 1990s struggling against the prejudices imposed upon image and sound by alternative rock fashion nazis. |
 | | Rage Against the Machine earned acclaim from disenfranchised fans (and not insignificant derision from critics) for their bombastic, fiercely polemical music, which brewed sloganeering leftist rants against corporate America, cultural imperialism, and government oppression into a Molotov cocktail of punk, hip-hop, and thrash. |
 | | Black Sabbath have been so influential in the development of heavy metal rock music as to be a defining force in the style. |
 | | Jane's Addiction were one of the most hotly pursued rock bands when they gained notice in Los Angeles in the mid-'80s, with record companies at their feet. |
 | | Arguably the most infamously named band in the annals of popular music -- for years, radio found their moniker unspeakable, and the press deemed it unprintable -- Butthole Surfers long reigned among the most twisted and depraved acts ever to bubble up from the American underground. |
 | | Temple of the Dog was a one-album project conceived in 1990. The purpose of Temple of the Dog was to pay tribute to the late Andrew Wood, the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, who died of a heroin overdose in 1990. |
 | | New Orleans metal band Crowbar was originally comprised of vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein, guitarist Matt Thomas, bassist Todd Strange, and drummer Craig Numenmacher. |
 | | Although rooted heavy metal and the punk/hardcore aesthetic, Isis' music relies just as heavily on ambience, atmosphere, and tone as it does complexity and aggression. |
 | | Formed in Oakland, California in late 1985, Neurosis developed a style blending industrial, heavy metal, and alternative rock with often spiritually focused lyrics. |
 | | Sonic Youth were one of the most unlikely success stories of underground American rock in the '80s. Where contemporaries R. |
 | | Before Pearl Jam, there was Mother Love Bone. Future Pearl Jam members Stone Gossard (guitar) and Jeff Ament (bass) were founders of this Seattle-based glam/punk outfit, which was fronted by flamboyant singer Andrew Wood. |
 | | Willfully abrasive and atonal, the Jesus Lizard emerged in the early '90s as a leading noise rock band in the American independent underground. |
 | | Dinosaur Jr. were largely responsible for returning lead guitar to indie rock and, along with their peers the Pixies, they injected late-'80s alternative rock with monumental levels of pure guitar noise. |
 | | Baroness play an eclectic brand of heavy metal, embracing the ferocity and sharp technique of new-millennium metal but with melodic accents and intelligent guitar work that suggest the influence of indie rock and post-punk bands. |
 | | Slayer were one of the most distinctive, influential, and extreme thrash metal bands of the 1980s. Their graphic lyrics dealt with everything from death and dismemberment to war and the horrors of hell. |
 | | The misanthropic sludge metal outfit Eyehategod was formed in New Orleans in 1988, and became an important part of a Southern sludgecore scene that included bands like Crowbar and Down, all of whom were heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Black Flag, and the Melvins. |
 | | Out of all of the bands that made SST Records a towering force in the American underground during the mid-'80s, Meat Puppets lasted the longest, surviving where other bands fell apart. |
 | | Stone Temple Pilots were able to turn alternative rock into stadium rock; naturally, they became the most critically despised band of their era. |
 | | The secretive instrumental art metal outfit Pelican was formed in Chicago by guitarists Trevor de Brauw and Laurent Lebec, as well as bassist Larry Herweg and his sibling drummer, Bryan. |
 | | Earth's drone-heavy experimentation is largely the result of its one lasting member, guitarist Dylan Carlson. |
 | | Tad were one of the heaviest Seattle grunge bands, fashioning a loud, slow, lumbering grind that -- unlike many of their peers -- was inspired far more by '70s metal than punk. |
 | | The preeminent metal band of the early to mid-'90s, Pantera put to rest any and all remnants of the '80s metal scene, almost single-handedly demolishing any notion that hair metal, speed metal, power metal, et al. |
![Salad of a Thousand: Live at North Shore Surf Club [Video/DVD] Album Cover](http://images.slacker.com/isv1/album/v1/248527/aol/1/center/5,0/70.jpg "Salad of a Thousand: Live at North Shore Surf Club [Video/DVD] Album Cover")
