Best Metal in National

High on Fire

Given society's Dungeons & Dragons fixation on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and, more recently, HBO's Game of Thrones, not to mention unending war and the shifty maneuverings of untrustworthy politicians, and the rise to power of Scimitar-assault sludge crew High on Fire makes perfect sense. Lead Fire-breather Matt Pike is a grizzled Lemmy for a new generation. Their most recent, last year's Snakes For The Divine, may show them attempting to clean up their sound for modern metal ears, but a scuzzy trio of thick-fingered marauders can clean up only so nicely. Standouts like "Frost Hammer" and "Bastard Samurai" still loot and pillage with the brutish thuggery typical of these stoner pioneers. As metal continues its steady descent into a Balkanized genre rife with a zillion microgenres, that force will always win out over genre loyalty, perhaps explaining how the transporting oblivion of High on Fire has grown from being merely rad to — dare I say it — legendary.

RUNNERS-UP:
2. Killing Joke
3. Harvey Milk
4. Kylesa

by DANIEL BROCKMAN

High on Fire