Every type of metal serves a different function. Thrash is for whipping your hair in a frenzy. Black metal is for striking evil poses. Metalcore is for karate kicks. And stoner-metal is...well, it's right in the name, folks.
Doomy, bluesy and fuzzy as all hell, stoner-metal is specially designed to be enjoyed with some greenery — but can just as easily be consumed without.
Whatever of our readers' recreational preferences may be, we asked them to pick the single best stoner-metal song ever, and the top five toke-getters — erm, vote-getters — are ranked accordingly below.
5. Clutch - "Spacegrass"
Every other song to crack the top five is for transporting the listener to a warm and fuzzy place, but not "Spacegrass." Clutch were smoking on an out-of-this-world strain of stoner-metal on this 1995 gem, one that's built upon a trippy delay effect, a loopy bassline and singer Neil Fallon's terrifying howls.
It's closer to a bad acid trip than a hippy-dippy romp, but clearly our readers appreciate that stoner-metal contains multitudes.
4. Kyuss - "Gardenia"
Other foundational stoner-metal bands like Electric Wizard and Sleep make music for indoor pot-smoking; songs that drip and burble like a couchside lava lamp. Kyuss' music is expressly for out-of-the-house stoner activities.
A desert-rock staple like "Gardenia" sounds best blaring out of a car stereo with the window down, the glow of a nighttime cityscape off in the distance. This is stoner-metal for scenic smoke spots and sativa-fueled escapades. Save the low-and-slow for your back porch night cap.
3. Down - "Bury Me In Smoke"
Sure, Down's "Hail the Leaf" has actual bong-rip sound effects in it, but "Bury Me in Smoke" got more votes this time around — and it's the right choice for this poll.
To close out their instant-classic debut, the NOLA sludge-stoner supergroup luxuriate on one of the greatest riffs of all time, playing it over and over again for three minutes straight until it's extracted more dopamine from your noggin' than a three-bowl, two-joint hotboxing sesh.
2. Sleep - "Dragonaut"
Obviously, Sleep had to be on this list somewhere, and while "Dopesmoker" would've been an easy pick, does anyone actually want to listen to a 60-minute riff while they're sunken into the couch in a delirious haze?
Maybe, but the six-minute "Dragonaut" provides a perkier headrush, as the band puff-puff on a Sabbathian dirge and then pass it to a rollicking gallop that enhances your high instead of smothering it. The real dopesmokers know that "Dragonaut" is the shit.
1. Black Sabbath - "Sweet Leaf"
Whether they admit it or not, every reefer fiend knows that they'll always be chasing that mind-warping first high, and that's essentially what "Sweet Leaf" is to the stoner-metal medium.
From the long-burning cough and the eternally eye-squinting riff, to Ozzy's not-so-subtle love lyrics to the sweet leaf that "gave to me a new belief," this Master of Reality staple includes all the blocks that future stoner-metal constructionists would build upon.
Whether you're lighting one up or just letting the music take you to a psychedelic place, "Sweet Leaf" never disappoints.
