Pre-Release
- APR 19, 2024
- 11 Songs
- Cometh the Storm
- Electric Messiah · 2018
- Snakes for the Divine (Bonus Track Edition) · 2010
- Death Is This Communion · 2007
- Electric Messiah · 2018
- Death Is This Communion · 2007
- Blessed Black Wings · 2005
- Luminiferous · 2015
- Electric Messiah · 2018
- The Art of Self Defense · 2000
Essential Albums
- When Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister was still alive, Matt Pike—singer/guitarist in High On Fire and the iconic stoner-metal band Sleep—often found himself compared to the late legend. Once, he even dreamed that Lemmy got mad at him about it. So, three years after the legendary frontman died of cancer, Pike’s Oakland-based sludge trio released a tribute album in his honor. It’s their most diverse—and maybe best—record yet. The riffs are loud, the rhythms are dizzying, and the Motörhead influence is obvious, but it’s still very much a High On Fire album. Land speed record contenders such as “Spewn From the Earth” and “God of the Godless” sit alongside more than 10 minutes of crushing doom in “Sanctioned Annihilation.” The title track, directly inspired by Pike’s dream, pays homage to the late, great Ace of Spades himself. Loud, brutal, nostalgic: Electric Messiah is proof that 20 years in, High On Fire is only getting better.
- Probably the greatest compliment one can pay High On Fire is that no band comes heavier. As stoner/doom-metal dudes, Matt Pike and Co. (bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Des Kensel) go for the jugular at all points, relegating subtlety to other bands not as singularly devoted to producing such heaviness. The title track crunches for eight-plus minutes that tributes Celtic Frost at their heaviest before giving way to the album’s first “single,” “Frost Hammer,” where the band tightens the approach ever so slightly: only in comparison to the complete shredders that follow. “Ghost Neck” begins the furious roll of the album’s second half where the band makes a brilliant bid as 2010’s most essential metal band. “The Path” is the minute-and- -a-half intro that sends the group into its darkest corner. “Fire, Flood & Plague,” “How Dark We Pray” and “Holy Flames of the Firespitter” offer solid marching tunes that veer into melodic passageways just under the dungeon. The multi-year wait for Snakes has brought a notable addition to their impeccable catalog.
- 2005
Albums
- 2024
- 2018
- 2015
- 2012
Music Videos
- 2024
- 2016
- 2012
- 2010
Artist Playlists
- Pummeling doom metal powered by vicious thrash riffs.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
About High On Fire
When stoner rock mavens Sleep called it quits in the late 1990s, guitarist Matt Pike formed the doom metal band High on Fire. Surely one of the most muscular power trios since Motorhead, High on Fire are also reminiscent of genre defining metal acts such as Celtic Frost, Slayer, and, of course, Black Sabbath. Yet the Oakland-based band has a broad artistic vision and a diverse musical pallet, positioning them firmly within a new movement in heavy metal in the early 2000s that appeals as much to indie rockers, punks, and avant-gardists as it does to traditional metalheads.
- ORIGIN
- Oakland, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1998
- GENRE
- Metal