If You Like Jeff Buckley, Then...

Jeff Buckley probably gets more deep swoons from more people than any 90s artist. More than Radiohead, more than Nirvana, more than Pavement (thank God). Guys, girls, teenagers, elder Boomers, passive radio listeners, hard core music fans, whatever, Jeff Buckley is that kind of artist. His was the kind of talent that was not just extravagant, but was also very open about its extravagance, wailing that you be fully aware of its brilliance. In a world in which everyone wants so desperately to be the star of their own movie and spends most of their waking hours constructing virtual personnae for themselves, it is only more awesome when you witness a true talent, a true star. That was Jeff.

But this type of magnificence presents a difficulty for recommendation purposes. If Jeff Buckley was truly so spectacular, who are you going to recommend that can possibly stand within his radiance without being burned to a cinder?

It's a tough trick (isn't it always?). Assume, for now, that we can't match the raw talent. Can we find something in Jeff's essence that is more attainable to the rest of the mortal world? That depends, since he has several essences. On a purely aesthetic/expressive level, his range flows from the worldly romanticism of Edith Piaf, to the poetic mysticism of Van Morrison, to the honey & vinegar soul of Nina Simone, and many others. So far, so good. He has that superhuman falsetto, not merely clear, but soaring and tearing at the same time. Still, so far so good. Other people have falsettos, too. If we count the artists that came in Jeff's wake and add in the artists that piled on after Radiohead's OK Computer, we could easily fill an entire book with emotive, male vocalists that feature aching falsettos. What most do not have that Jeff did have is a counterbalance to the fey fragility that the falsetto conveys. In Jeff's case, that counterbalance came from many hours with Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin. What it amounts to is rock star balls & bombast, melodrama backed by force. This is crucial. Most male vocalists who lay claim to "sounding like Jeff" have the sincerity, the emotion, the falsetto, but are completely devoid of ROCK. And that is the difference between a vulnerable young man and a neutered wuss.

I'm not above recommending some of these types of male singers to Jeff fans because I know that the surface appeal has some common factor, but I also know they fall short. Considering the masculinity issues at stake here, I think certain female vocalists probably get closer to the heart of Jeff's deep, yet narcissistic and virtuosic soulfulness than most males do. I'd say Tori Amos is the closest thing Jeff ever had to a true artistic peer during his lifetime. Although not devoid of her own flightiness, when it comes to laying it down behind the piano and microphone (especially live), she, like Jeff could, really lets it wail with a full force gale. That kind of power is essential to the Jeff Buckley core. That's what still gets the back of the neck hairs standing on end. Sadly, that kind of power is truly rare.

Still, giving it my best shot, here's what I have in Pockit Rockit and why:

Essence: intense, sensitive, narcissistic, emotive, soaring, wailing vocals. Range and dynamics are key: hushed love songs to howling songs of loss. A little melodrama, but a lot of passion.

Means: range and technique, but also depth of musical foundation, from soul to qawwali to chanson to pop to jazz to heavy rock.

Special Sauce: Rock power, to transcend the puppy dog softness and teenage melodrama.

1) Tori Amos: Like I said, she's the closest peer--closest in essence, talent, and power--to Jeff. Truly awesome talent and expressive artistry as a vocalist and instrumentalist. Both soaring and hushed, and extremely intense with her own material while also passionate and sensitive with her many, usually remarkable, cover songs (her one misstep was the cover of Slayer's "Raining Blood"). My favorite is still her first album, Little Earthquakes, with "Mother," "Winter," and "Precious Things" really showing what she's all about.

2) Ours: New Jersey band who had a brief moment of possibility with a Columbia Records contract. Never happened. Too bad, since the vocalist, Jimmy Gnecco, probably came closer to matching Jeff's raw vocals than any other vocalist I've heard. He has all the sensitivity and all the power. There's even a touch of Bono in his tone. And the band also had a suitably big sound to nearly match the vocals. Sadly, the songs weren't always there, especially when they went for more modest-sounding tracks. But they really should have made a bigger impact. Their first album, Distorted Lullabies, is easily well worth getting at Amazon for $0.99.

3) Sunny Day Real Estate: Another rare band with an emotive, falsetto male vocalist that is capable of amazing force, as well as vulnerability. When they first burst onto the scene, they were touted as a possible successor to Nirvana. Didn't happen, though their smaller fanbase may have been more passionately devoted than Nirvana's. It wasn't until after some intra-band turmoil that they produced their controversial swan song, The Rising Tide. Some fans saw it as a heavy rock betrayal; I hear it as their finest, an album of oceanic strength and dew drop delicacy. Not dissimilar qualities to what made Jeff Buckley so affecting.

4) Martin Sexton: Here's where things start getting a little difficult. Sexton is really roots-based, folk-blues-rock dude. Far earthier than Jeff ever was. Connecting him to Jeff is based on two specious, though not necessarily erroneous, elements. First, and it always has to start here, is the voice. Sexton sounds much more like a grown man than Jeff. With that, there is a greater modesty and everyday quality to Sexton's voice, compared to Jeff's supernova light. But out of the jeans and cowboy boots, Sexton lets loose a startling falsetto of his own, letting his usually hidden feathers spread out behind him. This leads to the second, deep similarity between Martin and Jeff: they both make the ladies swoon. Check out his song "Glory Bound" or his cover of Prince's "Purple Rain" to get an idea of what he does.

5) David Sylvian: Speaking of swooning, Sylvian was one of the masters. Girls would swoon, boys would swoon...his voice was so breathily entrancing that it seemed he would likely swoon, as well, if he weren't so elegantly removed. In many ways, his emotionless rapture, European artiness and ethereal (even cold) glory are the antithesis to Jeff's outward, expressionistic, scene-stealing dazzle. Jeff burns red, while David glows a pale blue. But male beauty and its artistic display could resonate through many fans, not necessarily sexually as much as the realization of an idealized state. Dead Bees on a Cake is probably the best place to start, with "I Surrender" "Midnight Sun" and "Thalhiem" being among his best.

6) Rufus Wainwright: So much for my Led Zeppelin, heavy rock claims. Rufus is a proud friend of Dorothy and, in fact, performed a massive Judy Garland program in New York last year. His voice can soar, but it tends to come out of his upper throat and nose, rather than the screaming wail that was often Jeff's stock in trade. Rufus is too refined for screaming. But much of Jeff was not about screaming, either. Much of Jeff was refined and elegant, as well. Elegance and refinement aside, both are/were sophisticated artists capable of generating deep emotional responses in their listeners. Both are deeply passionate and soulful, with brilliant grasp of melody and dynamics. So they're approaches are a bit different, both are dazzling talents with narcissistic streaks and I'm willing to make the leap that many Jeff fans would be, if they're not already, huge fans of Rufus'.

7, 8, 9, 10) Arid, Autumns, Prayer Boat, Starsailor: Four decent, but flawed, bands that have their own appeals without knocking the ball out of the park. These are some of the better of the bands I mentioned above that get that falsetto thing right, but either miss the power or the dynamics that made Jeff special. Arid, nice vocalist of course. But he is by far the best part of the band's fairly bland, mainstream "alternative" sound. Best tracks: "Little Things of Venom." Autumns, probably the most original of this quartet. Their albums have atmosphere and flow due to their big washes of "shoegaze" style guitar. The vocals reach some nice crescendos, but I'm still left wanting more in the way of memorable melody. Their self-titled album, Autumns, is worth checking out. Prayer Boat sound good on their first song: soaring vocals, rising swells and all. But song after song, you hear the band's limits in vocal delivery, compositional variety, and all-around impact. Starsailor got some attention, along with peers such as Keane, in the wake of Coldplay's initial success. Again, pleasant band, some good melodies, but just not remarkable enough to demand space in your CD player or iTunes. They did name themselves after the most experimental album of.......

11) Tim Buckley: Jeff's dad. It's all-too-obvious, but it must be said again that Tim was the most dazzling vocalist of the late 60s, US folk scene. The most spectacular technique, the widest range, coupled with probably the greatest willingness to push his talent into the realms of the unexplored. To say there is likely some familial influence does nothing to diminish the richness of Jeff's personal influences and his successes with synthesizing them into his own vision. Still, if you like Jeff, you must check out Tim's work, not just because he was Jeff's father and similarly died early, but because he was a jaw-dropping vocalist, in his own right (even if you still like Jeff better). Start with Happy Sad or Blue Afternoon or the live Dream Letter.

Artists I left out but maybe shouldn't have:

Here's where I could have put some of Jeff's influences/artists he has covered: Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Van Morrison, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Leonard Cohen. They are all immortal--among the greatest artists ever recorded. Everyone should at least check them out. However, between the radical stylistic differences between these artists and Jeff Buckley and the fact that I feel each artists represents only a facet or two of Jeff's essence, I opted not to include them in the "If you like Jeff..." list. As with every list, maybe I was wrong. But that's why this blog's here and that's why the website is dynamic. I'm more than happy to hear all arguments!

If You Like the Doors, Then.....

I don't think about the Doors very often. But when I finished Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up And Start Again, chronicling the various "post-punk" scenes that emerged from the scorched earth of the Sex Pistols necessary implosion, the Doors came back onto the radar screen. A recurring and interesting detail in the book was how frequently the Doors (specifically, Jim Morrison) were cited as an influence by post-punk bands. The fact that most post-punk bands were virulently anti-Classic Rock makes their fandom only more fascinating.

Some, if not most, of that influence/allure surely stems from the charisma of Morrison and the power he held over his audience. This plays into the tendency many post-punk bands had to work laboriously to construct conceptual foundations for their bands. One preoccupation that often found nearby these foundations was fascism. Sometimes, this was a fascination/repulsion thing, sometimes it was closer to a fascination/fascination thing. Either way, the charismatic leader (or "shaman," as Doors' keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, refers to Morrison) was inescapably alluring to post-punk bands, either for its conceptual ties to fascism or for its more ego-driven appeal to the leaders of certain groups.

Musically, the thing with the Doors is that they are particularly hard to peg. What is it about the Doors that a Doors fan most connects to? It could be any number of things since the band can be romantic and even sappy one moment, possessed and malevolent the next. I've mentioned the child/dark-side schizm of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. The Doors had something similar, but less fantasy-based, something more worldly and sexual. They were sometimes a blues-rock band, led by a keyboard player and lacking a bassist entirely. They were sometimes a commercial pop band for teen girls. And they were sometimes flat-out psychedelic as they went on improvised trips while Morrison went off into his primal/Freudian/existential black hole. Blues-rock, jazz, psychedelia, pop, hard rock, pretty/ugly, seductive/destructive, accessible/experimental. As with many classic bands that have been able to maintain an audience for forty years, there are many different facets about the Doors, each of which radiates at a different strength to each fan. Then again, it may just come back to Morrison.

I remember very well when I was trying to put together POCKIT ROCKIT, how surprised I was that I found these guys to be one of the very hardest bands to match effectively. The best approach I could devise was to approach one or two elements in the Doors make-up, such as the vocals or the instrumentation, and try to match those, rather than match the entire essence. In fact, I still scratch my head about trying to come up with better recommendations for the Doors. So, while I'm not necessarily the biggest fan, I have a great deal of respect for the Doors for being, in retrospect, one of the more idiosyncratic and original bands of their day.

ESSENCE: Like I said, this is tough. The best I could come up with is sort of kaleidoscopic, trying to capture the tightrope walk between the mainstream, the Dionysian-decadent and the insane, the possibility of pop pleasure or a slip through the rabbit hole. Or is it all a put-on?

MEANS: Different vibes on different tracks, Manzerak's organ, jazzy jamming skills, Morrison.

SPECIAL SAUCE: Does it have to be repeated? Morrison held it all together. I'll add that the de-emphasis on the guitar perhaps enabled the space for Morrison's presence and for the more atmospheric feel of some of the band's best material ("Riders on the Storm," "The End" etc).

Who I have in POCKIT ROCKIT and why:

1) Phantom's Divine Comedy: closest to the Doors actual "sound," if a bit more melodramatic.

Although their one-off album is from around 1974, these guys come the closest to actually nailing the Doors sound, the jazzy, trippy pop/rock with a hint of malevolence on the horizon, almost to the point of vaudeville. Getting the vocals right, or even close, is not easy, and this group hits it.

2) Nick Cave: The closest modern embodiment of the Morrison ethos: ragingly intense, movingly tender, always passionate.

Here's where we start leaving the Doors time period and try to translate their essence in new ways. Cave is probably my first choice in this regard. For one, he has that rich baritone that always holds the possibility of flying unhinged with Old Testament passion. Sexy, commanding. He can do lush, romantic, poetic ballads of love...or of murder. Or he and his crack band can release the bats, bellowing with hellfire and brimstone. Start with Live Seeds or Henry's Dream since both show Nick's range magnificently. Then move on to Tender Prey, probably my favorite.

3) Jefferson Airplane: some similar dark/light dynamics, but from a more folk--rather than blues-based--background.

Airplane had that peace, love, flowers...blood in the streets dichotomy, at times. Hippies, for sure, the acid was sometimes bad and it came it out in the music, from folk pop to heavy psychedelia. Grace Slick was also a suitably charismatic/sexy frontperson for a while.

4) Joy Division: Radically different sound, but some core, essential similarities of dancing around the void and the baritone vocals. Raw and doomy but rewarding.

This requires a little bit of a leap, since the bands are of clearly different times and places. However, JD's searingly intense vocalist, Ian Curtis, was one of those post-punk Jim Morrison fans I mentioned earlier. He also sang in a low, monotone, baritone, which had some connection to Morrison, but far starker, more harrowing, more suffocating, just as Joy Division's music is to the Doors'. But between the singers related neuroses/obsessions/demons and the bands' abilities to wake the razor of song and oblivion, JD may truly resonate with certain Doors fans, though I'm under no delusions that it will work will all of them. Start with Closer.

5) High Tide: A Morrison-type vocalist fronting a band more like Black Sabbath or King Crimson, around 1970.

At least the vocals have Morrison's deep, moody vibe, though the band is clearly heavier, doomier, and more prog rock-inclined than the Doors. Top quality band. Whether Doors fans or Black Sabbath fans will be more inclined to like their two great albums, Sea Shanties and High Tide, is anyone's guess.

6) Love: Great band, some existential issues, pop/experimental, but the actual sound is significantly different.

Wonderful band, but I have a few reservations. Yeah, they were in the same LA psych scene. Yeah, they could be baroque one moment and grungy the next. Yeah, hope and despair intermingled in some of their music. Yeah, Arthur Lee was a major personality. But I can't help but feel that more Beatles fans than Doors fans would turn on brightest to Love, considering the band's expertise with composition and arrangement, more than Dionysian expressionism.

7) Spirit: Many moods/textures, rock/jazz/blues/folk/psych. But also significantly different sound.

Another excellent band from the late-60s LA psych scene. But again, not exactly an accurate match for the Doors. The leader was the guitarist while the vocals were not remarkable. There was plenty of eclecticism, but I'm not sure the same tension, the same possibility of falling through the rabbit hole, is there in the way it is in essence for the Doors.

8) Danzig: Don't take this one too seriously, but if Morrison-like vocal power is what you want, Danzig's bellowing might hit the spot.

Kind of a lark, this one, but maybe not. Danzig is a campy blues-metal performer who uses Satanic and dark magic imagery in his schtick. However, if anyone in music of the last 20 years was actually influenced by Morrison's vocals, it was Danzig and his amazingly powerful vocal pipes. Throw in some Elvis and Vampira and you're set.

9) Agents of Oblivion: A genuinely passionate and soulful elegy by a band for their fallen bassist. Intense range of emotions and an astonishing vocal performance.

An outsider/dark horse pick and a possible result of my personal affection for this record. The side project of New Orleans metal band, Acid Bath, following the death of their bassist, this was kind of an elegy to him. As such, it has the range of moods I imagine a Doors fan would appreciate: wailing sorrow, red-eyed anger, tenderness, brutality. What holds the album together is what holds the Doors material together: a preternaturally powerful vocalist. Dax Riggs is really a wonder on this recording, from fallen angel falsetto to raving bluesman. A rare performance, Doors connection or not. Even better that the connection might be there, as well.

10*) Velvet Underground: This was a major omission. Though there are substantial differences, the core similarities are closely parallel.

I actually did not include them in the Doors list although, in retrospect, perhaps I should have. If one of the essences of the Doors is decadence and transgression, the VU were every bit their match. Given, the VU's decadence was a more NY/European, artsy/literary world of deSade, Masoch, Burroughs, Artaud, etc while the Doors had a more Californian, primal vibe with the two schools meeting half-way with Brecht/Weill. But either way, the drive was towards breaking taboos, crossing boundaries of sexuality and drug intake. The surface manifestations might have been different, but the underlying drives were relatively similar.

11*) Iggy Pop/Stooges: This was also a major omission, although more justified than the VU. Simply, the Stooges' raw-as-hell, blitzingly minimal, bestial rock attack sounds nothing like the Doors more elegant and refined organ-based sound. Also, Iggy's talk of working class aimlessness and limited horizons was a far cry from Morrison's mystic, rock god invocations. However, when it comes to raw, physical force, animalistic sexuality, on-stage abandon, off-stage hedonism, the whole nine, there are perhaps no two artists more aligned than Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison. Their essences are nearly identical, with substance ingestion to kill the largest land mammals in North America to sexual encounters with any and everyone from 13-year-old girls to transvestite dudes, to physical endurance that should have left them in traction for decades, factoring in the differences due to geography (L.A. via Texas vs. suburban Detroit). So, if you're keying in on the sound of two bands, the Doors and Stooges don't match. If you're keying in on the life-forces of the driving artists of these two bands, you probably couldn't do much better than linking these two madmen.

If You Like Black Sabbath, You'll Like...

There are only a handful of archetypes: Elvis as the "Rock Star," the Beatles as "The Standard," Led Zeppelin as "The Gods," Dylan as "The Bard," the Rolling Stones as "The Bad Boys," Joni Mitchell as "The Woman," the Velvet Underground as "Alternative," Big Star as the "Should Have Been Huge," Nick Drake as the "The Fallen Angel," and a few others. And then there's Black Sabbath, "The Lords of Doom."

It could be argued that Sabbath had an effect on every artist that followed them. They were the first to define an aesthetic based around darkness and heaviness. This had only happened in flashes from Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, Cream, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Zeppelin. Those artists each took turns skimming the Void; Sabbath went into it. Sabbath were one of the first artists to break as a huge success with minimal support from their label, suggesting to future labels and artists that massive marketing expenditures were not as essential for success as resonance with "the people." And then there was the sound: downtuned, tritoned, and stacked. The downtuning was a semi-result of a freak factory injury that severed the tips of guitarist, Tony Iommi's, fingers. Downtuning, or loosening, the guitar strings helped him to reduce the pain of playing. The "tritone" was a chord or note sequence that, in Medieval times, was thought to be evil and to conjure the devil. What was nifty was that the tritone could be incorporated so smoothly into the blues scales that were already prevalent throughout the rock scene and in the band's music when they performed as Earth, prior to rechristening themselves Black Sabbath. And the stacking refers only partially to the crushing volume and "warm" sound amplification provided by their distinctive Orange amplifiers. The stacking I'm talking about is better discussed by Joe Carducci and refers to having the bass and guitar play the same line on top of each other, essentially doubling-up and filling out the riff to ever more massive effect. For solos and vocal parts, the bass and guitar could separate again, leaving space for atmosphere, building tension, and setting the stage for the cathartic rush of when the stacked riff would drop yet again, igniting some primal, chemical surge, often best expressed physically in head banging.

Compared to Pink Floyd and some of the artists I will look at in the future, it is easy to find bands who sound influenced by, similar to, or connected by essence to Sabbath. Basically, Sabbath's core sound is really simple: downtuned, minor-key, blues-derived riffs, with tons of tritone progressions, wailing vocals, and a hard-hitting, swinging rhythm section. The songs are usually composed as rough suites of one or two riff sections, a jam/solo section, and out.

As simple as the formula is, very few bands get it right, even when they're consciously trying to imitate Sabbath. The most frequent fault is not realizing how loose, swinging, and groovy the Sabbath rhythm section is. Without that, the sound can become stiff, leaden, stultifying and, ultimately, boring. Truly, no one doing the Sabbath style is ever going to do it "better" than Sabbath. So, rather than exclusively recommend bands that sound most like Sabbath, I generally lean to recommending bands who are steeped in one or elements of Sabbath's essence and then take it to unexplored regions.

[Just a quick side-note that I should have brought this up in the Pink Floyd piece because it is so crucial to the guidance/discovery game: do you recommend based on who sounds most similar to the core artist or do you try to lead a reader to take the "next step"? With several slots to work with, I can do a little bit of both]:

So, before we dive into the recs, let's break Sabbath down to its essentials, its core, defining traits.

Essence: As with all of what we call "Metal," it's about conjuring strength and power through the heroic and/or the foreboding. In Sabbath's case, the emphasis is clearly on the foreboding part. The thinking behind the love of the foreboding, or "doom," is that the acknowledgement of impending doom feels better than being hit by it unexpectedly or than trying to deny it. Negative x negative = positive. Then again, it might just be an awesome chemical reaction that the riffs set off.

Means: Downtuned guitars, minor-key riffs, recurring "tritones," stacked guitar/bass playing, high, wailing vocals, swinging rhythm section.

Special Sauce: They did the riffs first and freshest--and most melodic. Great chemistry. Underrated grooviness.


Who I have in Pockit Rockit and why:

Budgie: Second tier, but beloved in the UK and covered by Metallica.

A Welsh band and one of the surprisingly few bands to play close to the actual Sabbath style in the early 70s (most hard/heavy bands at the time sounded more like Led Zeppelin or Grand Funk Railroad). They had minor-key guitar riffs and the high wailing vocals. But when you actually listen to them next to Sabbath, it's clear that the bands are in different leagues: Sabbath had thicker guitar sound, more swing, and better musicianship. However, Budgie are widely beloved in the UK and one of their songs, an uptempo number called "Breadfan," was covered by Metallica, so I felt I would be remiss if I didn't give them their place on the Sabbath list. Squawk is probably their most enduring, and most Sabbath-like, piece.

Candlemass: Took doomy Sabbath sound into neo-classical and operatic realms.

Here's one of those "next step" bands I was talking about. The Sabbath doominess is all over the place, downtuned guitar, minor-keys, tritones, the whole nine. However, these Swedes also add some neo-classical guitar mastery, giving a sound that moves Sabbath's earthiness closer to the grandeur of Mussorgsky. But Candlemass' true trademarks are the bellowing, magisterial, bombastic, operatic vocals of Messiah Marcolin. If there were any questions about the separation from the blues, the vocals obliterate them. As Priest and Maiden did with traditional Metal, Candlemass were probably the first to separate Doom Metal from the blues. Nightfall is their best.

Cathedral: 90s Sabbath flag-bearers, label builders and scene stalwarts.

Often cited as the major flag-bearer of the Sabbath sound in the 90s, especially in the UK. I don't want to diss Cathedral since they have been consummate professionals, really working to build a scene and support many artists. Tons of respect. However, their music has always fallen flat to me. The riffs sound generic, their vaunted groove feels more pedestrian than swinging, and the gruff vocals are limited an unappealing. But that could just be me. They're huge and respected in the scene so check 'em out.

Electric Wizard: Rawer, heavier, screamier, and much more wasted take on Sabbath.

Widely touted for a while in the doom underground for their gargantuan, drug wasted, post-Sabbath sound, I started having my doubts after seeing them in a dreadfully pathetic live show. Still, much of their recorded output is impressive, if you want the Sabbath rawness, but even rawer, heavier, thicker, screamier, more drugged-out. Dopethrone is yours. If you still want the Sabbath melodicism, look elsewhere.

Eyehategod: Nasty, heroin-fueled vibe but with heavy, melodic riffs and great swing.

Every bit as wasted as Electric Wizard, and probably on worse drugs. Despite the New Orleans scum and needle vibe, what Eyehategod really get right (especially on their best album, Take As Needed For Pain) is the melodicism and the deep grooviness of their riffs. Yes, the vocals are wretched, anguished screaming (not a completely bad thing in this band's context) and the production (not to mention the lyrics) is nasty as a crack addict squatter's bunghole, they know what makes riffs kick and what makes them move. Hugely revered and influential in the early 90s underground.

Melvins: An idiosyncratic amalgam of the history of hard/heavy rock.

They synthesized so many different strains of heavy rock history into their sound that they could be placed almost everywhere and nowhere. In truth, they're much screwier than Sabbath, with unpredictable song structures, some consisting of one riff (or digital silence), others bouncing around several. Some are glacial and massive, some are tight and peppy. But they love heavy rock profoundly, as do most fans of Sabbath. That love cuts through the perceived differences and should result in many fans of both bands. Bullhead shows them at their heavy, idiosyncratic, best, with no screwing around.

Penance: Straight-forward, classy doom with excellent musicianship, strong vocals and melodic riffs.

A good example of idolatry done well. All that you could want in the Sabbath sound, with a bit of 90s updating: lowered, yet still clean, vocals, stronger musicianship, and melodic influences that draw from classic, traditional metal. Consistently solid, but Parallel Corners was their breakthrough.

Pentagram: The closest thing there was to a second Black Sabbath in the early 70s.

If I had to name one band that sounds most similar to prime-era Sabbath, it would be Pentagram. Coming up with a similar sound at almost the exact same time, but in Baltimore rather than Birmingham, this is your band if you are looking for the Sabbath sound. Go with the excellent comp of early stuff, First Daze Here. With consistently high quality riffs, songs, and doomy vocals from Bobby Liebling, the major place Pentagram comes up short next to Sabbath is with their comparatively stiff rhythm section.

Saint Vitus: Unpolished, with a touch of punk amateurishness that many find endearing.

Ozzy had been officially out of Sabbath for six years (eight, unofficially) when Saint Vitus released its first album in LA in 1984. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal had done its thing, Def Leppard and Motley Crue had started doing their thing, Metallica and Slayer had started doing theirs. Sabbath was as ancient history as the Druids. Except Saint Vitus wasn't going to accept that, as their album title, Born Too Late, laid bare. They, as well as Chicago's Trouble, still worshipped the old gods throughout the 80s, despite the radical unfashionability of that stance. Personally, a lot of their stuff sounds like underproduced, slightly amateurish Sabbath, but those qualities can be very endearing to the right ears.

Sleep: Made the Sabbath sound even more monolithic and psychedelic.

Building off of some of the momentum built by Eyehategod, Sleep probably did more to bring Sabbath into the 90s than any other band, short of Sabbath's reunion, itself. Despite not selling particularly well during their career (probably due to limited touring and drug-related issues), their stature has only become more legendary as time has gone on. Sleep somehow managed to make Sabbath even heavier and more monolithic than it ever was, while also blowing out the psychedelic elements that were sometimes more suggested than truly explored in Sabbath. All this, while still maintaining that ever-elusive, swinging groove. Of course, as things got heavier and heavier and more and more psychedelic (by the time of their swan song, Jerusalem), melody tended to disappear into the cannabis haze, but this may deepen the trance. Start with Holy Mountain.

Solitude Aeturnus: Brought elements of progressive rock to post-Sabbath doom.

If Candlemass brought neo-classical elements to Sabbath, Solitude Aeturnus brought progressive rock elements to the doom sound. Featuring some of the best musicianship and strongest vocals in doom metal, SA were able to stay doomy while also attaining a level of dynamics and complexity that few others in the style could match. Some might say that you don't need chops in doom. Maybe not, but it makes for highly engaging listening. For those coming from a more Maiden/Fates Warning direction, this would be a doom band to check out. Beyond the Crimson Horizon shows them at their prog-doom best.

Trouble: Very melodic doom, with psychedelic pop and thrash touches.

Of the very few 80s bands carrying the Sabbath flag, Trouble is probably my favorite. They were easily Saint Vitus' equal in the heaviness department, but because of their better skills, they could gallop as well as crawl. Trouble's songs were consistently well put-together, highly melodic and memorable, as their influences ranged from straight doom to psychedelic pop to thrash. A great, important, and underappreciated band in the history of metal. Start with the Rick Rubin-produced, self-titled, Trouble.

Some bands I deliberately did not choose:

Blue Oyster Cult: despite the black magic imagery and occasional heaviness, their music was really not particularly heavy. Solid classic rock with some heavy moments, but not nearly enough to be a relevent comparison to Sabbath.

Obsessed: Important band in 80s doom scene, but I see them as kind of a more straight-forward, biker Saint Vitus. That, plus the common presence of Wino would have made their inclusion redundant.

Sir Lord Baltimore: Early entry to the US heavy rock pantheon. Some genuinely heavy moments, but also a lot of weak tracks. Lastly, their heaviness probably has more in common with, say, Mountain, than with Sabbath.

Bang: Another frequently-cited, early heavy rock band. The vocals are not dissimilar to Ozzy's but, as with Sir Lord Baltimore, I think consistent quality is lacking. Also, the drums are mixed very weakly, diminishing much of the potential power of their first (and best) album.

Orange Goblin/Alabama Thunderpussy: Both are high quality bands, especially live. Both could have been chosen for the list. However, both bands' reliance on boogie rhythms (which, admitedly, Sabbath used on occasion) gives them a feel that deviates just enough from any kind of doom to put them in a slightly different category. Taking this application to an extreme would be someone like Fu Manchu who, despite having many heavy riffs (some even semi-Sabbath-derived), give off a totally different vibe due to their rhythms, vocals, song structures, etc.