Chimaira

Chimaira is the kind of heavy band made for fans of Slayer's sheer intensity and Pantera's breadth of attack. Since the group's first album in 2000 (the same year it opened for Slayer at the Uptown), Chimaira has never let up, even when catching hell for being too hardcore in the early days. But its music is hardly monolithic. "Empire," which closes the most recent album, Resurrection — something of an epic movie soundtrack all by itself — is a song that manages to be a scathing commentary on politics while offering a vivid musical journey of cathartic power. This is the sort of band that proves the validity of metal in the 21st century. If anything, Chimaira has only risen to the challenge of this present darkness.