Harvey Milk

At one time, the music of this Athens, Ga., band was essentially impossible to find and was referred to in the reverential tones of an underground holy grail. A combination of bad distribution, limited releases and seeming indifference by the public (but outright worship by the few who heard them) prompted the early-'90s band to call it quits before the new millennium, with only three LPs and a number of unheard 7-inches to their credit. As the '00s unfolded and such groups as Sunn O))) and Khanate expanded upon Harvey Milk's slo-mo dirge metal, founders Creston Spiers and Stephen Tanner reformed the band in 2006 and released the characteristically great Life: The Best Game in Town. As with their early material, the songs on Life vacillate between crushingly heavy doom metal, a chuggering hybrid of hardcore and ZZ Top, with moments of indie rock tranquility. An infinitely distinctive guitarist, Spiers is liable to peel off a seriously sweaty '70s rock vamp, while the vocals, whether yelled or whispered, detail a seemingly bottomless pit of despair. In 2010, their once-intended debut album was released as Harvey Milk -- The Bob Weston Sessions. A Small Turn Of Human Kindness followed in May of that year.