“Black Fuel” by Channel Zero

"Black Fuel" is the title track of Channel Zero's 1996 album Black Fuel, and it's a thick slab of heavy riffing, grinding, groove-heavy and built to rattle windows. Franky De Smet-Van Damme wrote the words and bellows them, while the music came from the band's engine room: Xavier Carion on electric guitar, Tino De Martino on bass and Phil Baheux on drums.

Attie Bauw produced, engineered and mixed it, and he keeps the sound tight and punishing, with Carion's riffs chugging like a diesel engine and Baheux hammering away underneath. De Smet-Van Damme roars over the top with the swagger of a man who knows the band behind him will never let up.

Studio Brussel's listeners have kept it close for years, and the station's De Zwaarste Lijst, its countdown of the heaviest songs, keeps bringing it back.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.