666 : The History Of Metal

Earth change their name to Black Sabbath, come up with that riff and metal is born. In this country, they appeal to kids bored by their elder brothers Beatles records. In the states, they appeal to kids bored of smoking spliffs to the Grateful Dead. Some stay awake long enough to form Aerosmith, Kiss and the Alice Cooper Band. In the UK, S&M lover Rob Halford wants to wear his fetish gear on stage and Judas Priest accidentally create a look that will last fifty years. Punk breaks and lots of kids realise that you don’t have to write twenty minute tracks about flowers to be rock stars. Lemmy is kicked out of Hawkwind for taking too many drugs and forms Motörhead. Everything becomes louder than everything else. Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard lead the NWOBHM, giving spotty teenagers too placid for punk something to align to. Venom take Sabbath’s musical blueprint and haul it far far far over the line. In the states, Metal goes in two directions, Glam and Thrash. The former is about sex, drugs and blatant androgyny. The latter takes NWOBHM and plays it at double speed. In ‘Reign in Blood’, Slayer forge a level of brutality that thirty-five years later is yet to be eclipsed.

Slayer at the MEN Arena in Manchester on November 9th 2018. ©Johann Wierzbicki

Metal continues to distort and grow as the good cop, bad cop act of Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses make a concerted effort to take over the world. Even the once fiercely anti-establishment Metallica become global superstars with the mega-selling “Black” Album. Reacting to the blatant commerciality of the whole thing, Death Metal and Grindcore simultaneously emerge in Florida and North West England. But this isn’t enough to save Metal and the extinction event that is Grunge starves UK and US Metal of any new devotees. Europe remains untouched and has its own plans. In Norway, pissed off pagan teens make ugly music named after Venom’s seminal record ‘Black Metal’ and rebel by burning churches and killing each other. Elsewhere the underrated brilliance of Helloween begets countless acts wanting to continue producing albums about battles and elfves and Power Metal is born. In Gothenburg, three bands have the same idea at the same time, they meld Maiden riffs with Death growls and At the Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity create melo-death.

Anders Fridén was originally the vocalist for Dark Tranquility before joining In Flames.©Johann Wierzbicki

Back in America, Metal starts to stir, but it has been listening to a hell of a lot of hip-hop and the genre splicing, white boy rapping Nu-Metal slouches its way out of the primordial ooze. Come the 21st century the Dinosaurs have woken up and reverted to their original forms. Maiden, Sabbath, Priest, Kiss and Motley Crue all play kiss and make up with ostracised members. America has its own new wave of Heavy Metal, birthing Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold and Lamb of God. Nine degenerates from Iowa put on boiler-suits, bang beer-kegs and Slipknot becomes the biggest underground act of all time. Concurrently Metalcore merges the brash political directness of Hardcore with Metal’s flamboyance. By 2009, Metal has made a concerted effort to interbreed with every genre going and we have folk, prog, tech, Goth, symphonic, pop and post hybrids. As the genre reaches middle-age it spreads out globally as never before. South America, Asia and the middle and far east’s become lucrative touring destinations and have healthy homegrown scenes. As record sales dry-up, touring becomes the lucrative alternative as Metallica and an unfeasibly reunited GN’R discover people are willing to pay hundreds of pounds to stand at the back of a stadium. Metal continues to mutate and recycle. Obscure genres such as afro-spiritual, doo-whoop and shoegaze become fair game and loads of twenty something year-olds discover ancient Status Quo records and rehabilitate the twelve bar blues. And we reach now, the genre so vast that its polar opposites are starting to meet (see Gojira, Mastodon and Behemoth) and so inclusive that grandparents take their grandkids to gigs. We are no-longer a music type, we are a culture, we are family.

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