What defines how "heavy" a song is?

King George VI

I've been thinking about this for a while.
Sacrifice Unto Sebek by Nile, St Anger By Metallica, Nothing Remains - Chimaira... I thought they were each "the heaviest song I've ever heard" at some stage in my life but my idea of heavy has changed over the years. Then there's doom metal, speed metal, djent... Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, Gojira, Black Sabbath... All genres, all bands and all fans have their own take on heavy. I even heard someone say Dragonforce was heavy lolololololol. Some would even consider other genres like dubstep to be heavy, but this is the metal forum so we won't go there.

Blast beats and speed take away from a song's heaviness for me these days. A perfect example of a heavy song for me now is The Thing That Should Not Be by Metallica. That shit was heavy. I mean that blew my face off. Slow but not too slow. Chunky guitar tone, chugging riffs and dark lyrics.

How do you define how heavy metal is? What's the heaviest song you've ever heard?

me_irl

It's all subjective really.

But I used to think brutal death metal was my type of "heavy" (Cannibal Corpse / Dying Fetus / Prostitute Disfigurement / Amputated), but then heard Sunn O))), drone, sludge, doom and stoner metal and it changed my view. (The likes of YOB / Conan / Electric Wizard / etc).

Crushing riffs that last for an eternity and zoning out for the whole album (highly recommend Ommadon for that!).

Anesthetize

There could be several definitions of heavy. It it could be heavy in terms of skull-crushing volume, or use of dissonance and dark textures, or in terms of heavy emotional subject matter.

The Angelic Process combine all three into a crushing wall of noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfBd7J75L9c

Pyr0

It's very subjective and it really comes down to personal preference. I could name a number of tracks/bands or riffs that could be considered "Heavy" in the conventional sense, downtuned, palm muted chug riffs such a Cannibal Corpse, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel etc

Personally, if i find myself making this kinda face :mad: while head banging slightly to a song, i consider it heavy haha!

Angron

Yeah, there's no real scale for how heavy a song is, it's 100% down to the person. Songs can be heavy in their own ways too, like doom and sludge can be heavy in a different way to death metal, black metal, or thrash.

nacho libre

The heaviest riff i have ever heard is the song ground level sex type by Colour Trip. You will never be the same again if you hear it, I pray that you don't:(

But seriously as has been said it's all subjective, i am not a fan of hardcore, but there are plenty of heavy break downs in that kind of music. i prefer doom bordering on death metal type of heaviness, ala Unholy, My Dying Bride. Come to think of it the riffs by Dying Fetus and Cryptopsy in their early days are very heavy too