FIRE STORM

MATT PIKE and JEFF MATZ discuss the lead-up to and aftermath of HIGH ON FIRE’s latest release, Cometh the Storm, an album that couldn't have come at a better time for the Oakland metal masters.

- JON WIEDERHORN

HORNETS ’ NESTGUITAR buzz, dark, doomy riffs and rhythms as foreboding as torrential thunderstorms are what make High on Fire heavy. What makes them stand out from their stoner-metal peers, however, is the way they imbue Sabbathian sludge with Eighties metal hooks, thrash attitude, psychedelic swirls and authentic Turkish folk melodies.

“I never wanted to be just a doom band,” says frontman Matt Pike, who cut his metal teeth in the Nineties with drone legends Sleep. “When we formed High on Fire, I was thinking we’d be more like Celtic Frost with maybe a little black metal in there. But that was just a starting point.”

Since they surfaced from their Lovecraftian netherworld in 1998, Pike and his bandmates have explored multiple styles and subgenres. Their version of metallic doom gradually evolved into a faster animal heavily influenced by Motörhead and snarling biker metal. Then the band pumped the brakes a bit and upped their songwriting game, shifting up the rhythms and switching between various landscapes of fist-tight, mid-paced metal.

“Growing with this band has been like learning a language,” Pike says. “At first, you’re figuring out how to pronounce things, and then you’re expanding your vocabulary. By the time you step into the world and start to travel, you get exposed to all these accents and different languages, and you include some of that in what you do as well. You’re no longer just talking in your native language, so you’re always developing.”

Nearly 25 years and eight albums since High on Fire released their 2000 debut, The Art of Self Defense, the trio has reignited the metal scene with Cometh the Storm, a twisting, entrancing contrast of scorched-earth riffs, searing hooks and subtle, spacey interludes. It’s plodding, plundering and progressive — more of a musical journey than an aural assault.