An exception. A rebel. In short, a jazz singer light years away from the clichés of the jazz world. Nina Simone's art was, above all, an outcry; a glimmer of hope in an America plagued by segregation.

Looking back, the 2000s should be viewed as the second golden age of sludge-metal—a period when a whole new crop of bands were wading through the same muck the Melvins, Eyehategod, and Acid Bath trudged through a decade earlier, and tilling that sticky, filthy terrain into fantastically ugly new formations. Since then, big-name sludge-slingers like Mastodon and Baroness have chosen to wander upon cleaner, classier soil, while others have either called it quits (Kylesa) or reduced their output to a slow drip (Weedeater). But not only are High on Fire still going, on Cometh the Storm, their ninth album overall and first in six years, Matt Pike and Co. sound as heavy, gnarly, and gloriously sludgy as they ever have.