Heavy Metal Music

Metal Guide For Beginners

Everyday someone, somewhere, has their interest tweaked as what heavy metal has to offer. The list here is for the neophyte, the beginner, one who knows little, or maybe nothing much at all about metal but wants to find out more.

Metal music has a deep, rich, history of life changing material and it's catalog can be intimidating when getting started. For the beginner this list may also seem intimidating, but please know that this list is stripped down to the absolute essential albums that have formed the groundwork for the metal genre and it's subgenres.

For the seasoned veterans this list may seem incomplete. Hessians are passionate about their culture, and a list like this one is always cause for debate. However, each album here has had it's own unique, essential contribution and the importance of these releases cannot be stressed enough.

Metal, it's Hessian culture, and it's history all started with it's music. Here is a guide for any possible beginner. Enjoy the journey.

(some on this list include a short, basic explanation on their importance)

PROTO METAL/HEAVY METAL ORIGINS

Heavy metal started the whole thing. Evolving out of rock and blues, heavy metal focused more on neo-classical romantic themes, and not as much on predictable rock song structures.

Black Sabbath

Most would agree that Black Sabbath is THE most important cornerstone in the formation of metal music. The essential Sabbath albums include the following:

 

 

self titled, released 1970

Paranoid, released 1970

Master of Reality, released 1971

Volume 4, released 1972

Some may also include "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and/or "Sabotage".

Black Sabbath's approach to music was unlike anything anybody had ever seen before. During the era of "the hippie", Sabbath took the listeners to a reality check; showing that life has plenty of darkness in many forms, and instead of ignoring it one should embrace truth even if it's ugly.

The music world was never the same.

 

Judas Priest

Sad Wings of Destiny, released 1976

Judas Priest helped inspire what was to be known as The New Wave of British Heavy Metal. This movement, along with Priest, inspired the likes of Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth. Judas Priest's use of dueling lead guitars is a direct link to bands like Slayer especially, who use the same approach to this day. Iron Maiden

Killers, released 1981

The Number of the Beast, released 1982

Angel Witch

self titled, released 1980

Motorhead

On Parole, recorded in 1975, released in 1979

Ace of Spades, released 1980

Wow, here we have in Motorhead another group that inspired bands across many platforms. It was not uncommon in the early 80's to see punks and headbangers alike wearing Motorhead patches on their jacket of choice. Lemmy's gruff, scratchy voice was one of the starting points in what would later degenerate into the growls of death metal.

Motorhead also played faster than what most people were accustomed to, later causing many metal bands to crave even faster playing styles(speed metal is one example here, although the influence is immeasurable).

Mercyful Fate

Melissa, released 1983

Don't Break the Oath, released 1984

Mercyful Fate embraced the satanic theme, and their singer King Diamond took it on as a lifestyle. King Diamond took the vocal styles found on albums made by bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and extended the approach to create a style known to many Hessians as the "metal crooner".

King Diamond's makeup, along with artists from bands like Celtic Frost and Sarcofago, inspired the "corpse paint" look later adopted by the second wave of black metal bands.

Heavy metal also sparked a genre called 'doom metal', whose artists took Black Sabbath in particular to heart. The term 'doom' was adopted because of the downtuned, (sometimes)slow dirgy playing style; it gives the listener the feeling of doom. Some of the better ones include Witchfinder General's "Death Penalty", Cathedral's "Forest of Equilibrium", St. Vitus' "V", and Candlemass' "Doomicus Epicus Metallicus".

*Sidenote

Back in the late 60's and 1970's there were, in addition to heavy metal bands, a few other groups that had a big impact on later day metal. Kiss was one, but you can read about them elsewhere.

Another was Led Zeppelin; the occult like tendencies and existential ponderings they explored separated them from other rock bands of the era.

A personal favorite though, was progressive band King Crimson. Oddball Robert Fripp took jazz improv and mixed it with surreal rock guitar and romantic themes to create an unpredictable blur of musical genius.

 

King Crimson

In the Court of the Crimson King, released 1969

Red, released 1974

Hardcore punk is yet another genre that had a huge influence on metal, especially in the 1980's. It's harsh tone, fast power chorded riffs, and brash vocals help inspire just about every form of extreme metal ever created.

 

Exploited

Let's Start a War...Said Maggie One Day, released 1983

Discharge

Society's Victims (greatest hits set)

Black Flag

Everything Went Black, released 1982

Minor Threat

Complete Discography, released 1989, songs recorded 1980-83

Misfits

unofficially known as "Collection", released 1986

Misfits front man and songwriter, Glenn Danzig, is a borderline recluse(as far as musicians are concerned) whose angry, romantic satanist, tough guy rebellion is only topped by his songwriting skills when measuring his influence on metal. His band Samhain shed the comic book tendencies of the Misfits and took on a much more serious attitude towards occult driven esoteric music. "November Coming Fire" is the shining Samhain moment.

Glenn then went on to form Danzig, obviously.

Hardcore punk then inspired a direct link to metal in a genre called "thrash". Thrash used punk structures and fused it with metal riffs. Combine that with punk's ethics of commentating on everyday life with social analysis and that is how thrash was born. Over time the media created the term "thrash metal", which is actually a term that applied to speed metal bands like Metallica and Exodus. Let's just say that is was more marketable to call these bands "thrash! metal" instead of something "boring" like "speed metal". Thrash, however, is definitely a product of the hardcore punk culture, especially the skate subculture; example: "Thrasher" magazine.

There are many who will argue this point with no regard or caring for metal history; ignore these people. Just remember that it is 'thrash' and not 'thrash metal' because these bands are not metal bands, but aren't held in the standard punk mold either although they evolved out of it.

THRASH DRI

Dealing With It!, released 1985

Suicidal Tendencies

self titled, released 1983

Beloved by the skate thrashers of the early 80's, both DRI and Suicidal Tendencies took their hardcore roots and later expanded on that, evolving into something similar to speed metal by the end of the decade.

DRI even released an album in 1987 entitled "Crossover", which is a generic term for thrash. Personally I prefer the term thrash, but many will use crossover instead.

 

Dirty Rotten LP, released 1983

MDC

More Dead Cops, released 1982

Millions of Damn Christians, released 1987

Amebix

Arise, released 1985

Fearless Iranians From Hell

Foolish Americans/Holy War/Die For Allah, released 1990(contains previously released material from late 80's)

GRINDCORE What this genre did was take thrash and reduce thrash's minimal, but fast pace, and reduce it's structures even more, while picking up the pace even further; the result being an out of control grinding cycle done in a destructive mechanical fury. Grindcore at it's best harshly rejects authority and mocks society, very much like the hardcore punk and thrash that came before it. Napalm Death

Scum, released 1987

From Enslavement to Obliteration, released 1988 but was originally planned to be part of Scum

Napalm Death and Repulsion are the two bands given credit to the founding of grindcore, although Napalm Death started out as a hardcore band in the early 80's, and later adopted a more extreme speed death metal style. Anyhow, these two bands are the founding fathers of the genre. Repulsion

Horrified(both new and original covers), released 1989

Carcass

Symphonies of Sickness, released 1989

Co-founded by a former member of Napalm Death, Carcass is also one of the first ever bands to be considered grindcore. This band would influence many of the gore obsessed bands to come later.

SPEED METAL

Let's backtrack now to the early 80's. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal had by this point left it's mark on the impressionable metal youth. Mix that with some hardcore influence and speed metal came to be.

Complex palm muted riffs is a trademark of speed metal technique which was adopted by various bands all throughout metal afterwards. Paranoid neurosis and social displeasure are the core of this genre, showing us that the 80's was unique to music in general, but especially for metal. Even though the music transcends time, it also maintains an aura that is specific to the period which cannot be reproduced. In this aspect, it resembles hardcore punk, whose social criticisms and musical approach is also synonymous with the time period it came from. Speed metal's melodic structures though, show a maturity and deep understanding of technique brought about by the heavy metal forefathers.

Albums like "More Dead Cops" are difficult for me to categorize because there are so many similarities to bands like DRI, while also sounding very much like hardcore punk. Either way works in this case.

Metallica

Ride The Lightning, released 1984

Master of Puppets, released 1986

Megadeth

Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? released 1986

Rust In Peace, released 1990

Game Over, released 1986

Nuclear Assault Their "Survive" release is also excellent, but is out of print if I'm not mistaken. Voivod

Killing Technology, released 1987

PROTO DEATH/PROTO BLACK METAL

It wasn't until the late 80's/early 90's that the terms 'death metal' and 'black metal' were widely used terms although they've existed since the early 80's. The following list are releases that influenced both black metal and death metal bands that came later, while they themselves were not universally categorized at the time, but later on.

From what I've seen/experienced, using the term crossover leaves too much confusion which leads to unwelcome misinformation. It's hard for me to accept crossover as a genre defining term.

A note of interest: DRI is credited as being the first band to use blast beats, something that would later be, not only the norm, but expected in extreme metal recordings. DRI's contribution of the blast beat was enormous for metal.

Hellhammer/Celtic Frost

Celtic Frost emerged from the ashes of Hellhammer, making them almost inseparable when looking back in metal history. Hellhammer used the most primitive of playing styles to create an atmosphere of nihilistic evil. This primitive black metal style would be adopted by hundreds of imitators.

Celtic Frost saw the former Hellhammer musicians mature and go into more imaginative forms of mystic darkness. Here we see a black metal band playing in an almost death metal style. The aesthetics used by both Hellhammer and Celtic Frost made a huge impact on the what was to be the black metal explosion of the early 90's.

As one can see, the influence here is mostly black metal, but at the time the underground in all it's forms were in awe of these masterpieces.

Satanic Rites, recorded in 1983 and bootlegged since

Morbid Tales, released 1984

Sodom

Obsessed by Cruelty, released 1986

Possessed Often times this can be found with their "Persecution Mania" album, which is also a praiseworthy release.

Seven Churches, released 1985

Sepultura

Morbid Visions, released 1986

The most famous band to come out of the Brazilian underground, Sepultura started out playing in style of Hellhammer, which is what we have here.

This won't be the last time you see them on this guide; style changes for this band continue to this day even though their best years are long gone.

This album is brilliant, as are a few others (two of which are seen here later).

Before death metal became the established genre that it became, some of the more extreme speed metal bands took on some of the traits that death metal would adopt. A 'speed death' genre really doesn't exist per se`, but that term best describes the following.

Groups like Slayer had a speed metal guitar style, but lyrical content and drumming technique would influence just about every technical death metal band to follow.

This small grouping of bands fall into this kind of category.

Slayer

Schizophrenia, released 1987

Hell Awaits, released 1985

Reign in Blood, released 1986

Sepultura

Beneath the Remains, released 1989

Experimental, unusual, and technically unorthodox, Voivod is difficult to place. Of all choices, this category fits best. Kreator

Endless Pain, released 1985

Destruction

Infernal Overkill, released 1985

BLACK METAL

Probably the darkest of all metal genres, focusing on melody to express the themes presented. Also possibly the most romantic as well, developing a way to promote heroic anti-modern/anti-social poetry with tendencies toward ancient tone and nature worship.

Raw, emotional, and the most provocative music that metal has to offer(when done correctly).

Venom

Black Metal, released 1982

Bathory

self titled, released 1984

Under the Sign of the Black Mark, released 1986

Every single important black metal band to exist after the late 80's give credit to Bathory as being a major influence. Everything from Quorthon's approach to making Bathory's music, to the aesthetics and all in between, has been taken and expanded upon by later black metal musicians.

Simply put, black metal would NOT have become what it did without Bathory.

Quorthon started out making satanic themed music, later shifting his approach to ancient heroic Scandinavian viking music. This would spark a sub genre called "Viking Metal", which is very similar to black metal as far as sound, with the difference being as stated above: black metal is usually very satanic, while viking metal focuses on the heroic viking ancestry(viking metal bands reside in the Scandinavian areas of the planet and use their ancestry as focus for their antichristian stance as opposed to using satan).

Bathory's influential viking metal albums will be listed below.

"Black Metal" by Venom gave the genre it's name, and that alone is enough to put this in the list for it's historical contribution. The music on this album is decent; easily Venom's best even though their best isn't all that good.

The downfall with Venom is that they treat everything like a joke, taking away credibility they would otherwise have. In reality most metalheads think Venom suck.

Bathory would be the band to actually give black metal it's soul.

Sarcofago

INRI, released 1987

Another influential band to come out of the Brazilian metal underground of the 80's along with above mentioned Sepultura. Mayhem

Okay, now put your seat belts on. You cannot avoid the whirlwind that happened to this band back in the early 90's; a whirlwind that intrigues and amazes many folk to this day.

Here are the facts, and quick overview of what one should know:

Back in the 80's Mayhem started putting out music, and their guitarist Euronymous was instrumental in founding the Norwegian black metal scene which would spearhead the 'second wave' of black metal. The bands that would be most important in the second wave were Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone, Immortal, Enslaved, and Gorgoroth. Some of these band's members were close friends and some were not, but all had a connection with each other in some form or another.

Mayhem's second vocalist Dead, committed suicide in 1991. Instead of being a devastating event, this would seem to fuel the youngsters in their daily lives. No longer was there just extreme music being made, but now extreme actions were being taken. Several hundred year old churches were burned to the ground throughout Norway, and people like Samoth from Emperor would serve jail time for acts of arson. Faust, drummer of Emperor at the time, would end up in prison for several years for committing murder.

The biggest event though, was the murder of Euronymous by Burzum creator Varg Vikernes. I will not go into the "why's" or the various theories out there, but the murder was the ending point of what was the peak of extremity in the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 90's.

These events have cast such a shadow that it is imperative to at least know the basics of what happened, because historically it is worth knowing so one can get a bigger picture of what the Norwegian black metallers were up to at the time, and what their motivations were.

One thing is for sure, they were sick of weakness that metal was starting to show, and they wanted to prove that there were bands out there that needed to be taken seriously.

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, released 1994

Out of the numerous albums released by Mayhem, "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" is not only the best, but absolutely sums up the grand vision that Euronymous claimed to have. Brilliant piece of work.

Another release that is of interest is the "Live In Leipzig" album, one of the rare Mayhem recordings with Dead on vocals.

Burzum

self titled, released 1992, usually found with "Aske" EP included

Hvis Lyst Tar Oss, released 1994

Burzum created dark ambient black metal better than most, and these albums stand up over time better than most. Beyond genius.

Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes is still serving his prison sentence for the murder of Euronymous. (as of this writing)

Darkthrone

Under a Funeral Moon, released 1993

Transilvanian Hunger, released 1994

Bathory worshipping Darkthrone scrapped their death metal roots and adopted a raw, primitive, hateful black metal style. Their early works are some of the best metal ever recorded.

No strangers to controversy themselves, Darkthrone received heat for putting "Norsk Arsk Black Metal" on the back cover of Transilvanian Hunger, which translates to "Norwegian Aryan Black Metal". To further add fuel to the fire, they stated in a press release that anyone who criticized the album should be "patronized for their obvious Jewish behavior". What was meant as a smartass remark was taken literally by the press/public. It's a stigma that follows them to this day.

Emperor

In the Nightside Eclipse, released 1994

Immortal

Pure Holocaust, released 1993

Gorgoroth

Pentagram, released 1994

Anitchrist, released 1996

Absurd

Asgardsrei, (re-release cover), originally released in late '90s

Behemoth

Sventevith(Storming Near The Baltic), released 1995

 

Their "...From the Pagan Vastlands" is also considered a black metal classic, although most of their early works is exceptional. Beherit

Drawing Down the Moon, released 1993

Rotting Christ

Thy Mighty Contract, released 1993

Ildjarn

Det Frysende Nordariket, released 1995

Forest Poetry, released 1996

Mutiilation

Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul

Viking Metal

Basically a sub-genre' of black metal, viking metal takes the rich history of the ancients and uses that as influence for an anti modern stance instead of using the metaphor of satan.

Bathory Again we find the highly influential Bathory, who literally invented this subgenre with these epic, imaginative releases. An absolute classic set of releases.

Blood Fire Death, released 1988

Hammerheart, released 1990

Twilight of the Gods, released 1991

Enslaved

Vikinglr Veldi, released 1994

Graveland

Celtic Winter, released 1994

Thousand Swords, released 1995

Death Metal

Mocking the morals of modern times, this genre celebrates personal values, or lack thereof, above crowdist beliefs. Total lawless nihilism with a middle finger towards death phobia, death metal provokes the listener to face the ugly side of existance, often using extreme viewpoints. Black metal has a sense of heroism; death metal is very (romantically)anti-heroic and sometimes blantantly valueless while at the same time becoming inspirational in it's brutality.

Immolation

Immolation rules. You cannot go wrong with them!! Listen to any/all of their stuff.

Amorphis

The Karelian Isthmus, released 1992

Master

On the Seventh Day..., released 1991

Autopsy

Mental Funeral, released 1991

Death

Human, released 1991

Massacre

From Beyond, released 1991

Massacra

Final Holocaust, released 1990

Entombed

Left Hand Path, released 1990

Obituary

Cause of Death, released 1990

Suffocation

Effigy of the Forgotten, released 1991

Malevolent Creation

The Ten Commandments, released 1991

Morbid Angel

Blessed Are the Sick, released 1991

Deicide

Legion, released 1992

Gorguts

Erosion of Sanity, released 1993

Dismember

Like an Ever Flowing Stream, released 1991

At The Gates

The Red In the Sky is Ours, released 1992

One of the most amazing death metal albums in creation; easily tops all other releases in their catalog although "Slaughter the Soul" is the only one to avoid. Atheist

Box Set, most Atheist material is most excellent, and this box set contains their entire discography

Well folks, there you have it. Starting with these albums will give any aspiring headbanger a strong foundation in the culture of metal.

I would like to thank ANUS.com, Hessian.org, and Metal-Archives.com for their dedication and contribution to everything metal. These sites help people every single day, including myself.

 

Please send all comments to nameless.heretic@gmail.com. I know there's many great albums not on this list, and although I can't include everything, suggestions will be considered and a "runners-up" page may be put together in the future. Thanks for reading!

- Nameless Heretic