The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) pushed forth from the UK hot on the heels of punk, merging punk’s unfettered ferocity with art rock intricacy and musicianship amidst the churning riffage. Stripping away hard rock’s bluesy swagger, these acts arrived at a sound fierce and uncompromising enough to go toe-to-toe with the tallest mohawk. However, the fascination of the UK press with the ripped t-shirt brigade sidelined the metalheads initially.
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That changed in the late ’70s as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead released classic albums that launched the style and even crossed over to America. But while they enjoyed some success in the States, they couldn’t compete with hair metal. By the late ‘eighties’80s, most of the NWOBHM acts had peaked creatively. Yet their music laid the foundation for another generation of adventurous better-selling metal acts to come, much like punk heralded grunge.
While Maiden, Priest, and Motörhead enjoyed at least fleeting mainstream success, other acts such as Venom and Diamond Head were more influential than commercially profitable. Indeed, it was the very uncompromising nature of their sound that inspired others to push the boundaries of thrash, black, death, and speed metal.
1. Judas Priest
The band’s origins go back to 1969, and their name comes from a Bob Dylan song (“The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”), but the early iterations endured countless changes before settling on the classic lineup behind guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton and the operatic vocals of Rob Halford a year before their 1974 debut, Rocka Rolla.
The twin guitar leads and dark subject matter became as signature as Halford’s four-octave vocal range, beginning with Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), which earned them a major label deal. Their third album, Sin After Sin went gold, powered by a cover of Joan Baez’s “Diamonds & Rust,” the first of eleven straight gold or platinum releases. They adopted their iconic leather and studs look for Killing Machine (1978), which was released in America as Hell Bent for Leather after a shooting at a Cleveland Elementary School.
The band would peak with British Steel (1980) and Screaming for Vengeance (1982), featuring respective hits, “Breaking the Law” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin.’” Substance abuse would take a toll on Halford who would leave Priest in the ’90s, come out as gay, and return for Angel of Retribution (2005) and several subsequent albums.
2. Iron Maiden
Like Priest, Maiden endured near-constant turnover for its first several years, outside of founding bassist Steve Harris. They scored a label deal thanks to a self-released EP and made their eponymous debut in 1980. Despite some rough production, it went to No. 4 in the UK and next year’s follow-up, Killers, made inroads in America.
Substance abuse led them to replace their singer with Bruce Dickinson for The Number of the Beast (1982), one of the best-selling albums of all time, with over 20 million in sales. Like Halford, Dickinson was replaced for a time in the ’90s only to return in the early aughts. Their pace, intensity, and complexity influenced a wide range of acts, including Metallica, Dream Theater, and In Flames.
3. Motörhead
While Maiden and Priest might have played as fast and loud, it was Motörhead that shared its DNA, attempting to fashion a UK power trio answer to the MC5 in leather biker swag. Like Harris, singer Lemmy Kilmister is the sole member uniting the different strands, and he started making music five years before Priest, finally launching Motörhead after a four-year tenure in heavy space rockers Hawkwind.
They initially struggled to find a label, but their first four albums all charted successively higher, culminating in the breakthrough classic Ace of Spades(1980). They were metal’s answer to the Ramones in adhering to their particular brand of rugged, tightly-wound aggression for the balance of their career, until Kilmister’s death in 2015. Thrash acts such as Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica and Megadeth owe a sizable debt.
4. Venom
The power trio behind Venom formed in 1978, a few years after their contemporaries and late enough to have been deeply influenced by Motörhead’s forays into what would become speed metal and thrash. They also appreciated the theatricalism of KISS and adopted an overtly evil schtick as part of a shock-the-audience arms race begun by Ozzy Osbourne. They debuted in 1981 with Welcome to Hell. followed a year later by the hugely influential Black Metal, which inspired extreme metal acts such as Celtic Frost, Napalm Death, Mayhem, and Exodus, as well as Metallica, who once opened for them.
5. Diamond Head
Diamond Head struggled to find a label during the early ’80s when the market was hot, so they scraped together an album on a shoestring budget and sent it to reviewers without a cover to save money. The production wasn’t any better than Iron Maiden’s debut, but beneath the shoddy sound is a masterpiece. Sounds Magazine editor Geoff Barton quipped any of the album’s songs contain more great riffs than Black Sabbath’s first four records. Heavy, inventive, and varied, Lighting To Nations (1981) is a once-in-a-lifetime disc, they couldn’t repeat, but it inspired countless thrash acts for years to come.
6. Saxon
The South Yorkshire band initially formed in 1975 as S.O.B. but changed their name because of label radio play worries for the 1979 eponymous debut. Like their peers, the debut’s rumbling leather biker anthems are marred by bad production that obscures their skill. With a better producer, Wheels of Steel hit hard and the next several releases were both great and sold well. But after six albums in as many years, the gruel grew thin, including a late-’80s commercial metal gambit and the departure of key songwriter Steve Dawson, as the band coasted for years on its laurels.
Photo by Midori Tsukagoshi/Shinko Music/Getty Images
