Music of New Orleans - Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal

New Orleans has an active metal scene which began to take real form in the late 1980s. Bands such as Eyehategod, Down, Exhorder, Crowbar, Acid Bath, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, Kingdom of Sorrow, Graveyard Rodeo and Superjoint Ritual are either based in the city, or have a majority of their members hailing from the area. Artists such as Mike Williams, Jimmy Bower, Brian Patton, Phil Anselmo, Kirk Windstein, Pepper Keenan, Pat Bruders, and Kyle Thomas are New Orleans residents.

The city is known for the "Louisiana sound", which was pioneered by Exhorder, who was the first band to combine doom metal and up-tempo thrash metal. As a result, New Orleans is often recognized as the place where sludge metal was born. Several of these metal groups share a style which draws inspiration from Black Sabbath, Melvins, hardcore punk as well as Southern rock. There is still variance within the sounds of the scene, however. Eyehategod features very harsh vocals and guitar distortion; Down has a style closer to classic rock; Crowbar's music has mostly slow tempos and a downtuned guitar sound; and Soilent Green has a sound which is closer to grindcore.

It's quite usual for a member of one of these bands to be part of another band from New Orleans or Louisiana. Collaborations by members of a band on another are also fairly common. Jimmy Bower is one of the founding members of Eyehategod, he is also a member of Down, he is a former member of Superjoint Ritual and has worked several times with Crowbar. Pepper Keenan, member of Corrosion of Conformity, is a member of Down and also worked on Eyehategod's album Dopesick. Kirk Windstein is a founding member of Crowbar and a member of Kingdom of Sorrow and Down. Phil Anselmo is a member of Down, a former member of Superjoint Ritual as well as various metal acts based in New Orleans; he also has a hardcore punk side project along with Mike Williams of Eyehategod and Hank Williams III named Arson Anthem. Brian Patton is a member of Eyehategod and Soilent Green. L. Ben Falgoust II is the singer of Goatwhore and Soilent Green.