Unknown Soldier

I was indeed referring to the second album, if you don`t think its very stoner what would you describe it as?

Janszoon

I don't know exactly what label I'd put on it, but definitely not stoner. It's way too fast for starters. And what other stoner band can you think of that has drumming like that?

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25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

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Unknown Soldier

There is a lot of crossover between stoner, sludge and doom metal anyway especially between doom and sludge and stoner and sludge, making sludge the vital link.

Kyuss probably one of the most famous stoner acts could play pretty fast as well.

It would be kind of interesting to to define these three metal genres, as they define the slow to mid tempo range of metal.

Janszoon

I agree there's a lot of crossover between those styles but I wouldn't describe High on Fire as playing any of them. To me one of the defining characteristics of all three is relatively slow tempos.

I don't know Kyuss all that well but what I remember of them doesn't sound much like High on Fire.

Hmm... that would be interesting. Let me give it a shot:

Doom—Probably the hardest to define of the three since it has a number of subgenres that are pretty different from each other, but basically I'd class it as metal with a fairly direct line of descent from Black Sabbath. Characteristics include fuzzy guitar riffing and much less emphasis on the drums than other varieties of metal.

Stoner—I would mostly consider this a subgenre of Doom. Of all styles of metal this is the one most likely to display some of the blues influence from metal's earliest years, though not always. Tempos are slow, guitars have that fuzzy doom riffing style, vocals are generally clean and songs are often quite long.

Sludge—I view sludge as sort of a 50/50 mix of doom and hardcore and as one of the noisiest types of metal. Guitars are distorted and abrasive, tempos are slow and vocals are screamed.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

SGR

Do you guys think anything by Korn or Rage Against The Machine is worth buying?

Janszoon

Rage Against The Machine's first album is pretty good, it's just aged badly because it influenced so much crappy music.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

SGR

So you recommend that? Is any of their other stuff good?

Unknown Soldier

Interesting take on the three, but there are a number of aspects I`d raise though.

Doom- I actually think this is the easiest to define, its the slowest of the three and draws its line of descent directly from Black Sabbath and its the least varied of the three. Typical bands are Electric Wizard, Cathedral, Candlemass and American bands Pentagram and Saint Vitus (both of these groups are not as heavy though, probably to do with the fact that they were formed in the 70`s).

Sludge- My fav of the three largely due to its influences from southern rock, blues etc and as said there is also a hardcore element typical in some of the bands like Crowbar. Typical bands are Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, Down and of course the Melvins the best band, despite having a highly experimental edge.

Stoner- Again covers a wide field and along with blues influences, the psychedelic element is very evident, without doubt not as slow as the other two genres and bands in this genre can also be described as stoner rock such as Monster Magnet or desert rock, I`d also say that bands like Blue Cheer and Blue Oyster Cult were very early purveyors of this sound. Typical bands are Kyuss and Sleep.

As for High on Fire I`ll agree they are faster than I thought with a heavy Motorhead influence and touches of Slayer. But they do have a sluggish heavy Kyuss type sound as well which underpins everything. For that reason I`d still classify them as a stoner metal band with a faster sound. The drumming is about as intense as that of say Mastodon

Necromancer

Korn has a couple of OK singles, they will be disappointing if you are expecting artistic rock. They are basically just rhythm section musically that is very loud with effects. In my opinion, their sound almost borders on the Funk Rock genre, but Nu-Metal is their origin.
Rage Against The Machine is a band I have been meaning to check out myself.

Unknown Soldier

I`d say RATM were very much of their time and not really worth listening to, I have the debut album and its nothing special. Korn are far superior all round and their debut is a NU-Metal classic......in fact the only classic album from the whole genre as I don`t think of SOAD as really being NU-Metal. Any reason why you`ve picked these two bands to listen to?