It’s no secret that I have been a metal-head since well before my adult life, and of all the fads and phases that ran their course in my life as an American youth, Metal has been the constant – the most steadfast item in my varied toolbox of passions. Unlike my interest in fixing fabulous one-pot meals or pretending to know the first thing about bicycle
maintenance, my taste in aggressive music doesn’t transfer to my circle of acquaintances. This doesn’t dampen my eagerness to share, much to my friends’ mounting irritation. It can be very obtuse stuff, and admittedly on the first spin, a Rotting Christ record proves almost universally hard to swallow. But like chicken livers or brussel sprouts or any acquired tastes, heavy metal must be approached gradually, in increments and with great caution.
I’ve assembled for those even minutely curious about the diverse, multi-textured milieu of the devil’s music a primer to ease your transition from ordinary citizen to dyed-in-the-wool, sworn to the black hesher in just 15 steps. Not all tastes are universal, but hopefully at least one of these suggestions will lead your curiosity in the right direction.
Getting your toes wet
The metal impulse flourished in 1970s rock and roll and didn’t solidify into a proper genre of its own until midway through the decade. Many of these early pioneers make for good tempering as your tolerance for heaviness develops.
1. Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”
This is my Excalibur, the record that started it all, both for my interest and heavy metal’s worldwide spread in popularity. Sabbath was a jazz band called Earth before a few happy accidents allowed them to infuse the angst and frustration of blue-collar life in industrial Birmingham, England with a heavy interest in the occult. Paranoid is still as spooky and crushingly heavy after 40 years and hundreds of repeat listens. Seeing them reunited live was one of the most profound “spiritual” experiences of my life, and if nothing else on this list speaks to you, I hope that you can keep this record with you. Although they midwived metal into the world and are universal inspiration, their most faithful adherents are doom bands like Orange Goblin, Saint Vitus and Pentagram.
2. Angel Witch’s “Angel Witch”
Doomed to semi-obscurity now, Angel Witch was one of the hundreds of groups in the early 70s trying to figure this new music out (they had an organ player!). Angel witch was just a notch or two heavier and more complex than Led Zepplin and explored occultism more overtly than their more popular contemporaries in songs like “Baphomet” and “White Witch.” Heavier, more focused music was built on the backs of lesser known bands like these guys along with Dust, Lucifer’s Friend and Captain Beyond.
3. Diamond Head’s “Borrowed Time”
Another British band with almost zero mainstream acknowledgement but fierce loyalty from the bands they influenced. They laid the groundwork in the mid-70s for what would later become Bay Area Thrash. The very early work of massively popular bands like Metallica and Megadeth can basically be described as meaner, sped-up Diamond Head songs. Their track “Am I Evil?” is an indisputable metal classic.
4. Queen’s “Innuendo”
Yes, that Queen. They’re legendary for their flamboyance and pop virtuosity, but their less acknowledged heavier material is the key to their genius. Innuendo is one of rock music’s most under-appreciated records. Its unpredictability is a primary influence on Opeth, and their stop in Brazil on a late ‘70s World Tour was a contributing factor in the formation of Sepultura. Without Queen, Power Metal very likely might never have been.
5. Judas Priest’s “Hell Bent for Leather”
By now we’re transitioning from rock n’ roll with a darker edge to full-stop heavy metal with Hell Bent For Leather, which sees Judas Priest make the same seamless transition in the span of one album. Here we see metal become faster and more aggressive as well as tongue in cheek. Check out the amazing cover of Fleetwood Mack’s (and yes, THAT Fleetwood Mack) “The Green Manalishi.” Priest influences just about everyone, seeing as they’re one of the leading lights of the monumentally important New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Caught in the current
If you’ve stayed on so far, all the hard work is done. If aggressive music sticks in your brain as a pleasant sensation, the rest of your developing taste is a matter of degree.
6. Iron Maiden’s “Piece of Mind”
I put Maiden in the running to be the greatest rock band of all time, and like many metal-heads refer to them un-ironically as gods. They semi-self consciously blew up all the sonic and thematic excesses of metal to ridiculously extreme proportions, all the while writing dozens of songs that are harmoniously beautiful and threatening. Piece of Mind is one of half a dozen perfect albums between The Number of the Beast and Somewhere in Time. Like Priest, their footprint extends all over extreme music, especially wherever double guitar harmonies can be heard. They are much beloved by power metal bands like Helloween and Angra.
7. Dio’s “The Last in Line”
Ronnie James Dio is consistently awesome, and every song practically drips with fist-pumping swagger and outlandish fantasy silliness. He’s also got a voice on him that’ll knock your britches off. Fantasy and power metal are a great break from all the exhausting Satanic stuff. You can really have your pick of any album he’s ever made with his eponymous band, but the title track from “The Last In Line” is my favorite Dio song.
8. Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning”
Before they were gagillionaire prima donnas, Metallica earned their street cred by making speed metal epic. Their second album is my favorite because they maintained the fury epitomized by Bay Area Thrash brothers Exodus and Testament and imbued their old sound with sweeping thematic elements and more sophisticated songwriting. This was also back when they still used Marshall amps and wrote songs about battles and plagues and freezing to death under an icy lake.
9. Mercyful Fate’s “Don’t Break the Oath”
By the early 80s, the occult was prevalent in the metal world, but the Danish proto-black metal quintet Mercyful Fate took Satanic themes to another level and paved the way for bands like Emperor and Satyricon. Inspired by 70s progressive rock, Don’t Break the Oath is an early masterpiece of theatrical metal punctuated by King Diamond’s unearthly, high-pitched wail. “Come to the Sabbath” is an especially haunting ode to the spirit of a witch burned at the stake. I consider it one of the top five metal albums ever recorded.
10. Motorhead’s “Motorhead”
The one true and endearing moment from the awful 90s movie Airheads starring Brendan Fraser is when the “Lone Rangers” frontman quizzes a phony record executive over who would win in a fight, Lemmy (Kilmister, singer of Motorhead) or God. This of course was a trick question, because Lemmy IS God. Motorhead is a perfect band. Get as much of their music as you possibly can. That is all there is to be said about them.
The deep end
If you’re still interested, from this point on there are a dozen different directions that metal goes in. The next five bands serve as a very brief introduction to extreme metal. Among other things, that usually mean it’s “the screaming kind” that you just couldn’t get your head around up until this point. Enjoy.
11. Bathory’s “Blood Fire Death”
Mercyful Fate set in stone the occult themes of European black metal, but it was the Swedish band Bathory who gave the genre its trademark sound. This record was a creative breakthrough, and the blistering speed and inhuman rhasps articulate a fierce devotion to their Viking heritage with a sly Satanic twist. This album set the mold for Viking metalers from Abigor to Enslaved to Windir and hundreds of others.
12. Kreator’s “Pleasure to Kill”
The best of the holy trinity of great German thrash bands (Sodom and Destruction are the other two) and this record saw them turning a vicious new leaf with a nod to the Emerging death metal scene. After a while, Thash and Speed metal bands tend to blend together, but this record is so fierce and angry that it still sends chills down my spine. Their following albums only get better and more complicated, but Pleasure to Kill gets my vote for pure, unadulterated rage.
13. Death’s “The Sound of Perseverance”
It wasn’t enough for late metal savant Chuck Schuldiner to basically invent death metal in the late 1980s (arguably it was Possessed or Necrophagia with the first official release) but he also gave the genre its best record to date. The sound of Perseverance is towering work of art that never gets lost in its own ambition. The guitars soar like birds of prey, Richard Christe’s drums are manic but as tightly controlled as any jazz veteran, and Chuck for some reason switches from his usual guttural moan to a stratospheric shriek. Besides a small hiccup in the instrumental track, this record is musically flawless. Even if it didn’t have the incredible cover of Judas Priest’s “Painkiller” as the last track, it would still be my favorite metal album of all time. They’re arguably the best of the 90s death metal bands like Cynic, Gorguts, Pestilence, and Athiest to experiment with Jazz and make It work.
14. Carcass’ “Heartwork”
Carcass is another super versatile metal band that performed a sudden late-career metamorphosis. These mild-mannered British vegetarians created hyper-fast and sloppy Gore Grind (you can imagine what that sounds like) before releasing Heartwork in 1994, playing the newly minted Melodic Death Metal better than anything they ever had played before. Jeff Walker’s raspy snarl (the best in metal) is actually gripping and beautiful laid over the beautifully composed mid-tempo guitars.
15. Dark Tranquility’s “The Gallery”
Here’s another European melodic death band that became super-influential in the mid 90s as part of the Gothenburg, Sweden style of thrash and is responsible for the melodic tricks and tropes lazily copied by Heaven Shall Burn and hundreds upon hundreds of other uninspired modern bands. It is refreshing, nay, inspiring to hear the original sound played with such earnestness and passion as present in Dark Tranquility’s first album. Other people prefer their contemporaries In Flames or At the Gates, but there’s a special place in my heart for The Gallery.
That’s barely a percentage to represent what’s out there, from Saxon to Japan X to Deicide to Nortt. If you’ve made it though this list and liked what you heard, you don’t have to worry about yourself as a threat to society. I’m a metal fan, not a hyper-masculine thug or a malcontented Devil worshiper. The consistent strain that runs through most metal is fun, irony, fantasy, catharsis, and a different reflection on life and society, and I enjoy the escapist tendencies to be found therein. Hopefully this list can unlock a side of you that responds to the dark side.
