10 of the Heaviest Grunge Songs of the ’90s
Grunge and metal aren’t synonymous, but they often go hand in hand. I’ve said before both in casual conversation and on the record that albums like Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger are as much metal as grunge, driven by sludgy low-end and the kind of stoner-metal intensity put forth by the likes of Corrosion of Conformity just a little further down the radio dial. (And let’s not forget—drone-doom titans Earth were both a Seattle band and a Sub Pop band, further reinforcing the connection.) That said, some grunge songs are heavier than others, so as we kick off ’90s month, I’m offering my candidates for some of the heaviest grunge songs of the ’90s.
Alice In Chains – “Dam That River”
Alice In Chains toured with Metallica, which is proof enough that they’re as much metal band as grunge band. The same can be said of “Man in the Box,” “Them Bones,” “Grind,” hell, take your pick. Pretty much all of Dirt for that matter, though a particular favorite in that regard is “Dam That River,” whose rush of power chords arrives with such menace and fury that it feels almost too aggressive to have fit in alongside the likes of standard alt-rock radio fare back in 1992. Even today it’s impressively muscular, a standout moment of intensity from a band that rarely saw fit to keep such things at bay.
Listen: Alice In Chains – “Dam That River”
Babes in Toyland – “Bruise Violet”
Babes In Toyland hailed from Minneapolis rather than the Pacific Northwest, through frontwoman Kat Bjelland was in fact an Oregon native, and in fact had previously been a bandmate of both Hole’s Courtney Love and L7’s Jennifer Finch as a member of the Pagan Babies. Like a much sludgier take on the Olympia riot grrrl sound, Babes in Toyland had a uniquely intense sound, which they took to the next level on their major label debut Fontanelle. Leadoff track “Bruise Violet” lives up to its name, driven by churning riffs that sound like they could do some serious bodily harm.
Listen: Babes In Toyland – “Bruise Violet”
Failure – “Wet Gravity”
Failure’s connection to grunge is one of time and place more than anything, having formed in Los Angeles in 1990 and embodying a sound that would later be frequently referred to as “space rock” as a result of the dense, conceptual material they cultivated on Fantastic Planet. But at the very least, Failure still sounded pretty grungy on the whole, chunky power chords in ample supply throughout their first three albums. “Wet Gravity,” a climactic standout from 1994’s Magnified, showed just how heavy their own take on alt-rock got, with a thunderous bassline that anchored a chorus that could shift the ground beneath it. The extended psychedelic outro of the song doesn’t do anything to disprove the “space rock” description, but then again, it never eases up on the heaviness either.
Listen: Failure – “Wet Gravity”
L7 – “Diet Pill”
Los Angeles’ L7 had more than a few brushes with the mainstream, even if they never quite achieved the level of success that many of their Seattle peers did. Their 1992 single “Pretend We’re Dead” was an alt-radio hit, while “Shitlist” landed on the soundtrack to 1994’s Natural Born Killers, alongside the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction. But while their sound captured a unique kind of L.A. sleaze, there was more than a little classic doom metal influence running through much of their album Bricks Are Heavy (the intro to “This Ain’t Pleasure” sounds like it could open up an ancient crypt). “Diet Pill” is the heaviest moment in an album overflowing with them, driven by a riff that’s utterly brutal in its simplicity.
Listen: L7 – “Diet Pill”
Melvins – “Night Goat”
History has vindicated Seattle’s Melvins as more metal than grunge in the overall scheme of their extensive body of work, though having been part of the scene as it was happening nonetheless puts them right at the center of it. Which helps explain why they—along with pretty much every other band on this list—ended up on a major label at the time. Their 1993 album Houdini definitely scans as grunge, but it’s also inarguably a sludge metal album, as evident by the slo-mo groove of standout “Night Goat,” in which King Buzzo delivers some minimalist guitar chug over a pummeling plod from drummer Dale Crover and a sinister bassline from Lorax, a.k.a. Lori Black, daughter of Shirley Temple.
Listen: Melvins – “Night Goat”
Nirvana – “Milk It”
Nirvana’s In Utero proved that, despite the runaway success of Nevermind, the group’s influences and cacophonous tendencies skewed farther beyond the mainstream than “Smells Like Teen Spirit” might have initially let on. Their third and final album doubles as noise rock, sometimes in provocative fashion (“Tourette’s”) and sometimes via more melodic forms of aggression (“Scentless Apprentice”). “Milk It” is somewhere between the two, a climactic surge of sludge that erupts between oozing, antisocial verses, weaponizing the quiet-loud dynamic with this pipe-bomb of a song.
Listen: Nirvana – “Milk It”
Smashing Pumpkins – “The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)”
Smashing Pumpkins had perhaps the most range of any band of the grunge era, delivering a beefy rock anthem one moment and drawing inspiration from The Cure and New Order the next. More than a few of their standout tracks could lay claim to being their heaviest, particularly the trio of Mellon Collie destroyers, “X.Y.U.”, “Tales of a Scorched Earth” and “Fuck You (An Ode to No One)”. But the closest the group ever got to a proper doom metal song was “The Aeroplane Flies High,” an eight-minute b-side that rides a murky drop-D riff that’s as much classic Sabbath as it is emblematic of the fuzzed out sound of ’90s alt-rock. That it closes out with a psychedelic freakout of a coda only adds to the swirling maelstrom of intensity it harbors.
Listen: Smashing Pumpkins – “The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)”
Skin Yard – “Slow Runner”
A staple of the Seattle grunge scene that never really broke into the mainstream, Skin Yard nonetheless has connections to a number of the best-known bands of the era. Matt Cameron of Soundgarden, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and Jason Finn of Fastbacks and Love Battery all played in the band at one point, and Jack Endino—who has produced just about all of them—remained a member of the group up until their breakup in 1993. They also skewed a little closer to metal than most, like on Fist Sized Chunks opener “Slow Runner,” which turns its waltzing rhythm into a seasick, breakneck spin cycle for thrash-metal riffs and an Ozzy-like vocal delivery from Ben McMillan.
Listen: Skin Yard – “Slow Runner”
Soundgarden – “4th of July”
That riff! There’s an argument for maybe half a dozen Soundgarden songs as their heaviest, and pretty much all of them are potentially correct: “Jesus Christ Pose,” “Outshined” and “Birth Ritual” among them. And truthfully, by the time they released Superunknown, the grunge vets had embraced a little more of a pop sensibility, though that didn’t make them any less prone to moments of crushing heaviness, several of which arise throughout the album. This one being the most thunderously sludgy. The opening riff of “4th of July” in an instant feels like not just the heaviest thing that Soundgarden ever did, but in that moment it feels a little like the heaviest thing you’ve ever heard. That Thou could cover the song and make it feel like part of their own oeuvre without changing all that much tells you all you need to know.
Listen: Soundgarden – “4th of July”
Tad – “Just Bought the Farm”
Compared to their Seattle grunge contemporaries like Mudhoney, Tad leaned heavier into heavy metal influences than punk rock, an identifiable Iommi-like sensibility present in their drop-D riffs. But the promise of the group’s sludgy sound was made flesh with the arrival of their 1993 major label debut Inhaler, produced by Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis. Highlights such as “Grease Box” and “Throat Locust” featured a driving, drop-D riff sound similar to that of New York peers Helmet, but the most thunderous moment is “Just Bought the Farm,” a slower grooving psych-metal track that reaches for the kind of Valhallan heights that Soundgarden achieved on 1991’s Badmotorfinger. Moments like these positioned Inhaler as an album somewhere between 120 Minutes and Headbanger’s Ball, as emphasized through a tour poster that depicted Bill Clinton with a joint, emblazoned with the phrase, “It’s Heavy Shit.”
Listen: Tad – “Just Bought the Farm”
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