Cirith Ungol

Formed in Ventura, California in 1971 and named for a mountain pass in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Cirith Ungol built their sound from the heaviest end of early-seventies hard rock — Cream, Mountain, Grand Funk — and kept pushing darker when most of the scene was lightening up. Their 1981 debut Frost and Fire is now recognized as an early landmark of American power metal; King of the Dead, three years later, pulled further into shadow and earned its place as a proto-doom touchstone. The band dissolved in 1992, spent nearly a quarter century in silence, then reconvened in 2016 to find their cult had grown deep roots. Vocalist Tim Baker's corroded, scorched delivery remains the band's most unmistakable instrument — a voice that sounds like it was never not playing to a half-empty club at midnight.