Spotify Pie Chartby Trackify

  1. Genres
  2. Metal

Groove Metal

Groove metal is a heavy, mid-tempo style of metal built on thick, rhythmic guitar riffs that make listeners nod along.

It takes the aggression of thrash metal and slows it down, putting weight and swing ahead of speed. Guitars are tuned low, riffs are bouncy and rhythmic, and vocals are shouted or growled. American bands began playing it in the late 1980s, and Pantera's 1990 album Cowboys from Hell is often named as the record that fixed the style and made it popular. It later fed into nu metal and metalcore.

Artists it is known for: Pantera, Sepultura, Machine Head, Lamb of God.

Family
Metal
On Spotify
A current genre
What it is
A genre
From
United States, late 1980s to early 1990s
Trackify listeners who play it
5%

About 3,800 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have groove metal among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.

Groove Metal artists

The groove metal artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.

Sources

The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.