Godsmack

Boston lumpen-rockers of note have made a career out of flogging the last bit of life out of Alice In Chains' workhorse grunge formula: fierce guitar riffage, over-the-top crooning and heavy bass lines that sink through the rock sludge like Liquid Plumber. By taking heavy metal chops and precision beats and hammering them together with "'roid rage," Godsmack have created the state-of-the-art jock rock for the new millennium. The band signed to Universal Records in 1998 and almost immediately scored with the single "Whatever," from their self-titled debut. A spot on the Ozzfest tour followed, as well as their follow-up record, Awake, which cemented their place near the top of the post-grunge heavy music heap. In 2002, they were nominated for a Grammy for "Best Instrumental Rock performance" for the song "Vampires." Godsmack continues to headline tours and put out records, the most recently, an acoustic reworking of some of their older songs, came out in 2003 and was titled The Other Side.