Crowbar

New Orleans heavy metal institution Crowbar combines the doomy heft of Black Sabbath, the intense riffage of Pantera, and the intricate progressions of Metallica. Alongside Eyehategod, Soilent Green, Acid Bath, and Down, the group helped establish the NOLA sludge metal movement in the 1990s. Plunging into the mainstream in 1993 with their acclaimed eponymous sophomore effort, Crowbar has spent three decades at the fore of the scene, issuing uncompromising slabs of sonic devastation like Odd Fellows Rest (1998), Equilibrium (2000), Sever the Wicked Hand (2011), and Zero and Below (2022) that stand at the nexus of sludge, stoner, and doom metal.