Phillyboy

Well said, and I love how Slayer sounded kinda sloppy at some points on R.I.B., but it was so beautiful. I agree they are 2 very different albums. I never listened to metal before I heard these 2 albums ( don't rly consider Zep and AC/DC metal but w/e ), so when I hear the word metal, those are the two bands that immediatley pop into my head.

BTW, I saw a teen today with one of those "Famous" brand T-Shirts, that was a spot on copy of the Master of Puppets albums cover, except, it said "Famous" where "Metallica" should have been. A little piece of me died inside, I'm not gonna lie to you.

Unknown Soldier

Hey....I can`t believe that somebody with your HM knowledge doesn`t know Sepultura that well Personally I love this band and they take the thrash/groove metal template the whole way. I have most of their stuff but its without doubt the Max Cavalera stuff you want to listen to before he went of to form Soulfly. Start with "Beneath the Remains" 1989 and then "Arise" 1991 these are largely thrash affairs up there imho with the best stuff that other thrash acts were putting out at the time. Its the period just after this that Sepultura for me became one of the best metal acts ever and this is based on the following 2 albums "Chaos A.D" 1993 and "Roots" 1996, on these albums the band moved towards a groove metal sound and incorporated influences such as Industrial but most importantly Brazilian tribal rhythms, I would say that these two albums are some of the best HM albums ever especially Roots. Another defining factor of the group, is that of the sonic savagery of Max Cavalera which is almost unequalled.

Unknown Soldier

Try listening to this one the great Sepultura songs performed live:

YouTube - Sepultura - Straighthate live 1996

Unknown Soldier

Hey...no one would ever know you were in a Metallica covers band

Talking about great albums such as "Reign in Blood" another of note and very similiar but instead of thrash is death metal and that is "Slowly We Rot" by Obituary, I`ve noticed that Jackhammer has put this record as well on his top 50 best metal albums ever.

Seragon Ripper

I've had trouble finding Tang Dynasty stuff except live stuff on YouTube myself. But try bands like X Japan of The Visual Kei genre(I don't really consider dressing up to be a genre because most of these bands play different genre's). And I would trust unknown soldiers knowledge of Sepultura because I even just got into them.

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All Hail Shagrath

Certif1ed

I will check that out - and anything else in his list I'm not familiar with.

I have to point out that we didn't just cover Metallica - we covered Slayer too, and Anthrax, Megadeth, Sacred Reich... nothing was too hard for us to have a go at, that was our attitude!

...and then Watchtower came along...

Besides, we only did covers to pad out the set and get the audience into what we were trying to achieve while we were writing our own original material. Thrash was not a popular idiom in the mid-late 1980s in the UK, it was very much as underground as the Ozric Tentacles were.

Certif1ed

Because there is a severe lack of counter arguments, looks like I'll have to provide them myself;

Motorhead

How can this band define metal?

Can you think of a band that sounds like Motorhead?

Neither can I.

How can a band define a genre, if it only sounds like itself, and no-one else has bothered to copy their style?

Motorhead's style hardly typifies the honking scooped midrange A - C6 based rifferama so repetitively and predictably employed by just about everyone else, from Priest to Ozzy to Saxon to Dio - everyone. Except Motorhead.

There are no passages crammed to bursting with tritones, sludgy, doomy riffs, or tremolo 16th thrash - come to think of it, there's almost no phrygian mode in the soloing - it's practically 100% pentatonic!

You could describe Motorhead's music as the heaviest expression of the Blues - or even Rock and Roll - and I'm sure Lemmy would NOT disagree - far from it, he would probably agree with pride.


Dio

When I think of metal, I don't think of some corporate machine replete with shiny MTV video.

Admittedly, fantasy stuff populated with 30ft laser-eyed dragons and suchlike is part of the stereotype image I have of the genre - but most metal bands I saw and enjoyed at the time of the NWoBHM (and since) had less lavish stage shows, yet still conveyed this imagery - where applicable.

Dio are more like Spinal Tap in this - in fact, Spinal Tap are probably more what I would think of as a Heavy Metal band; Very ordinary guys with loud guitars, pretentious beyond belief, deicated to the music so much that they don't even realise that they are not the most amazing musicians in the world, Marshalls that go to 11, needlessly long guitar solos, and stage props that never work.

Like I said earlier, Dio are a bit of a conundrum - they shouldn't really define Heavy Metal, but somehow they just do. It's really difficult to find a convincing argument against - yet thanks to their "more pretentious than thou" image, they're just not "it".



Next post;

Saxon vs Holocaust

You can't really find two more down to earth and genre-typifiying bands than these, so I'm psyching myself up by having these two on continuous loop all day.

Certif1ed

Saxon

Under-rated Metal GODZ, Saxon were the epitome of the NWoBHM right from the very start. Not only that, but they were one its highest-calibre, not to mention highest volume players.

There can be no doubt that Saxon influenced the fledgling Metallica - listen to the song "Seek and Destroy", particularly at the faster section of the solo. Now listen to "Princess of the Night" by Saxon, at approximately the same location in the song.

Cue - 3:34



...just listen to "Princess of the Night" anyway won't ya - it's frickin' AWESOME!

"Speeding, sparks like lightning
Engine working hard
Furnace on the foot plate
Shining in the night
Iron striking metal
The sound of racing steel"

Everything about this conjours up the atmosphere of the Sheffield steel works that these boys knew the reality of intimately. This is REAL working class metal;

Cue - 1:48 (although there is some soloing prior to that which sounds suspiciously like Kirk Hammett's style);



Uncanny resemblance, huh?


Saxon epitomise the British Heavy Metal style by starting off in a somewhat Proggy vein - yeah, you read right - then refined their sound over 4 albums without losing identity, integrity or variety in their music.

If you thought Saxon were all balls-to-the-wall high-octane power metal, you'd be wrong.

Check this nice proggy piece from their debut and weep;



You want more prog metal stuff, with vocal harmonies and multiple key/tempo changes?

You got it!



(didn't Metallica also write stuff about "Metal Militia" or some such?).


...and this, which almost rates as a ballad from the must-have "Wheels of Steel" album. Feel those chills run up and down your spine!;



But don't forget the high speed stuff;




Saxon just got better with time - although they sadly left behind the complexities of their debut, they never lost the metal soul of their music;



...and it wasn't just the fast stuff they were good at - check out this ANTHEM;




Saxon were also dynamite live - here's the evidence;




Finally:

Wheels of Steel, 747 (Strangers in The Night), Strong Arm of the Law, Dallas 1PM, And the Bands Played On - what more could you want?


Saxon - Metal Godz.

Certif1ed

Holocaust

Holocaust would have been one of the many glorious unsung, alongside Dragonfly, Mythra, Pagan Altar, Bleak House, etc. if it were not for Metallica - but even now, their stature goes widely unrecognised.

I described Saxon as the epitome of the NWoBHM above.

I was wrong.

I started this thread and no-one else is disagreeing with me so far, so I guess I'll have to do the job

Everyone has heard of Saxon.

You've probably only heard of Holocaust because Metallica covered "The Small Hours" on their "Garage Days Revisited" EP as something for Jason Newstead to appear on (coz you certainly can't hear him on "...And Justice..").

"The Small Hours" is a fantastic song - and I actually prefer Holocaust's rough and ready lads-off-the-street-couldn't-tell-the-band-from-the-audience attitude - one that Saxon sang the glories of, but didn't really identify with, what with all the spandex, silly stage props and major record label signing.



Holocaust were a "proper" heavy metal band in true Spinal tap style.

Who cares whether they had the abilities or not - they had the attitude and determination in larger quantities than Biff Byford's cucumber supply, and they didn't need a record deal to come up with killer songs.

"Heavy Metal Mania", the title of their first EP says and defines it all - the wondrous air raid siren opening and gruff JCM 800 chug is all you need to hear - and smell - everything that was real about the NWoBHM in the early 1980s.



The 3rd essential Holocaust tune you need to hear is "Smokin' Valves" - says it all really.



Finally, if you're left with any doubt whatsoever that Holocaust really are Heavy Metal personified, suck on THIS;



Forget the naff vocals, forget the pentatonic bluffery on the lead guitar - the riffs and lyrics say all you need to know about what makes metal so beloved of its fans. Especially the ones who know not to take it all seriously

Isbjørn

Released before the genre was fully developed, but still influental.

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