"The Roots of Metal" Project

This morning's track is Sorcery's "Airborne" which I regard as being hard rock:

This morning's track is Sorcery's "Sorcerer" which I regard as being hard rock:

The last track from Sorcery's "Sinister Soldiers" album is "Schitzoid" which I'd suggest should qualify as heavy metal:

This means that I've tagged only two tracks from "Sinister Soldiers" as being metal which is not enough for it to qualify as a metal release overall. It's a hard rock/heavy psych record for mine. Tomorrow we'll be starting a brand new release in Judas Priest's classic 1978 fourth album "Stained Class" which I would suggest holds strong metal prospects.

This morning's track is Judas Priest's infamous "Exciter" which I'd suggest is an early example of speed metal:

Today's track is Judas Priest's "White Heat, Red Hot" which I'd suggest should qualify as heavy metal:

This morning's track is Judas Priest's "Better by You, Better Than Me". I'm gonna go against the grain here by saying this is predominantly a hard rock song rather than a heavy metal one. Sure, there's one obvious metal riff during the pre-chorus but the remainder clearly sits in the rock space in my opinion.

I checked out the 1978 demo tapes from Russia's Легион & London's Girlschool this week but found them both to offer very little in the way of metal. I also investigated Budgie's 1978 seventh album "Impeckable" which is unquestionably a hard rock record.

This morning's track is the title track from Judas Priest's "Stained Class" which is a clear heavy metal number with its driving metal riffage.

I also checked out Thin Lizzy's "Live & Dangerous" live album from 1978 yesterday. It's clearly a hard rock record rather than a metal one but I'd suggest that there are a few tracks that should qualify for metal status.

This morning's track is Judas Priest's "Invader" which I'd suggest sits right in the middle between heavy metal & hard rock:

I' also checked out Japanese outfit Bow Wow's 1978 live album "Super Live" yesterday & found it to be predominantly a hard rock record although it does include a few tracks that are close enough to metal.

This morning's track is Judas Priest's "Saints in Hell" which I'd suggest is heavy metal:

There's no metal whatsoever on Lucifer's Friend's 1978 sixth album "Good Time Warrior". It's essentially a commercial AOR record.

This morning's track is Judas Priest's "Savage" which I regard as being heavy metal:

Today's song is Judas Priest's "Beyond The Realms of Death", a track that is universally regarded as a classic heavy metal power ballad but one which I'd suggest is probably more of a hard rock/heavy metal hybrid with the hard rock playing the stronger role of the two.

This morning we tie up Judas Priest's "Stained Class" record with closer "Heroes End" which I'm (perhaps controversially) going to claim as being hard rock rather than heavy metal although there's probably a case for a dual tagging too:

This sees "Stained Class" finishing with a successful metal ratio of 81% (the highest we've seen to date making it the most metal album released to the time) & rounding out our first ten genuine metal releases ever list which looks like this:

01. Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath" (1970)

02. Black Sabbath - "Paranoid" (1970)

03. Black Sabbath - "Master of Reality" (1971)

04. Black Sabbath - "Vol.4" (1972)

05. Black Sabbath - "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" (1973)

06. Black Sabbath - "Sabotage" (1975)

07. Judas Priest - "Sad Wings of Destiny" (1976)

08. Rainbow - "Rising" (1976)

09. Judas Priest - "Sin After Sin" (1977)

10. Judas Priest - "Stained Class" (1978)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/271

I will throw out something else a little controversial by saying that, even though "Stained Class" is clearly a metal release, I've actually had to give it a dual tag with hard rock as it ended up with two songs that were solely tagged as hard rock (i.e. "Better by You, Better Than Me" & "Heroes End") & two that received dual tags of heavy metal/hard rock (i.e. "Invader" & "Beyond The Realms of Death") out of the ten included.

I know a few of your were pushing for Deep Purple's "In Rock" to be included in the list but I have to say that I don't hear it personally & the votes on the Hall of Judgement vote are currently in agreement with me so it doesn't qualify anyway. I've been really enjoying the process so I'm thinking that I might continue it through the end of the 1970's. See you tomorrow for a brand new record in Rainbow's 1978 third album "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll".

This morning we kick off a new release with the title track from Rainbow's 1978 third album "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll", a track that I'm confident most would agree is simply hard rock:

I checked out Rush's 1978 sixth album "Hemispheres" today but didn't find any metal to speak of. It's purely a progressive hard rock record.

This morning's track is Rainbow's "Lady of the Lake" which people seem to want to tag as heavy metal but is nothing more than hard rock with some added atmospherics being added by the keyboards as far as I'm concerned. I'm guessing that people tend to think this makes the song sound more "epic" which tends to be something that's associated with metal for some reason but that doesn't make the riffs suddenly transform into metal riffs or the beats magically become metal drumming. It's just a more epic sounding hard rock tune as far as I can see.

Also, I investigated the 1978 third album "Pain Killer" from Switzerland's Krokus yesterday but found no metal whatsoever. It's a hard rock record with Status Quo-inspired boogie rock influences as far as I'm concerned.

This morning's track is Rainbow's "LA Connection" which is pure hard rock with a strong Led Zeppelin influence:

This morning's track is gonna be a controversial one. It's Rainbow's "Gates of Babylon" which is often touted as an early metal classic but really contains very little metal to speak of. Once again people are wanting to tag it as metal simply because of how "epic" it sounds when the tools that are being used really have no basis in metal. It's a symphonic progressive rock piece as far as I'm concerned & would seem to my ears to be Rainbow's attempt at something like Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". 

Today we look at Rainbow's "Kill The King" which sits somewhere between heavy metal & power metal making it the very first power metal song:

This morning's track is Rainbow's "The Shed (Subtle)" which I regard as being a hard rock song:

I investigated the 1978 "Cuentos de ayer y de hoy" debut album from Spanish five-piece Ñu this morning. There was definitely the odd sign of metal but it never amounts to a full song. I'd suggest that this is a progressive hard rock record with strong folk influences.

Today's track is Rainbow's " Sensitive to Light" which I regard as being hard rock:

This morning we close out Rainbow's "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll" album with "Rainbow Eyes", a ballad that I'd suggest sits best under the chamber folk tag. That leaves me with a very clear "NO" result for "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll". There's really only the one metal song included in the infamous "Kill The King" & I've always struggled to understand how anyone could view it differently to be honest as it's just so clearly a hard rock record as far as I can see.

Tomorrow we'll begin a new release in 1978's "Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis" debut album from Spain's Zarpa Rock (or simply Zarpa as they're more commonly known as). This particularly underground record has built up quite a reputation in the underground as being a bit of a player in the early metal scene. Let's see if it lives up to its reputation, shall we?