"Rising" by Rainbow 🌈​ released 17.05.1976

I was so excited to listen to this album! The singer of Rainbow (great name btw) is Ronnie James Dio, who's also the front man of Dio (who could have guessed), one of my very favorite heavy metal bands! On top of that, this album regularly makes it into "greatest heavy metal albums of all time" lists, so I was very curious. I hadn't listened to Rainbow before this album, but I was expecting the music to be somewhat close to what I love in Dio, and indeed it was!

This is a pretty short album, barely over half an hour and only 6 songs, but that was enough to win me over! The music is what I would describe as the more approachable side of heavy metal, a kind of early power metal that has some pop elements (a lot of synthesizers) while still maintaining a good kick to it.

The themes are starting to show Dio's affinity for fantasy: he mostly talks about werewolves, tarot cards and wizards. The songs Starstruck (about a stalkerish fan) and Do You Close Your Eyes are the only songs with more down to earth lyrics. I personally really love Dio's songwriting, he has a good balance of poetry and story telling.
Stargazer is an amazing, 8 minutes long epic, telling the story of slaves building a tower for a wizard to fly from, only to realize he's simply a man when he crashes down on the floor. The following song, A Light In The Black, deals with the feelings of deceit and loss that the slaves felt when their god turned out to be false. With those two songs, we have half of the album being dedicated to a fantasy tale with very powerful imagery.

This is Rainbow's second album, and I actually have their first and third ones on tape, so I should give them a try because this was so good, I'm sure I'll also enjoy their other albums!

#RainbowRising #Dio #ikolDiscoversMetal

"Sad Wings of Destiny" by Judas Priest, released 23.03.1976

This is Judas Priest's second album, and the one where they really started to find their sound and image. This is also a very influential album in the history and development of heavy metal. Even just looking at the cover, it's one of the first with such a classic heavy metal look, depicting a fallen angel weeping in Hell.

Judas Priest recorded this album, as well as the previous one, with Gull Records, who only paid them £2,000 per album. This meant that the band could only afford one meal per day, and they've said that the poverty they were in as well as the bad relationship with their record label inspired the dark tones of this album. Despite a lack of commercial success for both albums, they managed to sign to a bigger label for their next album and got paid £60,000 for it!

So, let's talk about the music. The two sides got switched, so Prelude is in the middle of the album, and the song that was supposed to be the album's climax, Victim of Changes, is the first one instead. I don't mind, because it makes the album start very strongly!
Talking about Victim of Changes, I'm very much in love with this song! It's 8 minutes long but it never drags on, switching styles several times but staying very addictive. I often think jokishly that I would love to sing it in karaoke - as if nobody would mind me doing 8 minutes of trying to reach Halford's falsetto highs. Nevertheless, I sing every parts at home, in a similar fashion that I sing Bohemian Rhapsody.
The second song, The Ripper, is also very dear to me. I absolutely love the weird sounds they put in it, and the effects Halford's voice has there. Of course the fact that it's about Jack the Ripper also makes it extra special!
Concerning the rest of the album, it's a bit 50/50 for me. For every great, heavy song (Tyrant, Deceiver...), there's a ballad or an instrumental. And we all know how I feel about instrumentals... But the heavier songs are really good, and Halford's voice is making my soul vibrate and I just want more of that!

#ikolDiscoversMetal #JudasPriest #HeavyMetal

"Ted Nugent" by Ted Nugent, released in 09.1975

Strangely enough, Ted Nugent is not even the singer of this band, but one of the guitarists… On top of this, despite having all the songs credited to his name, the band apparently created them all together, and he put his sole name on it supposedly to not have to pay the others royalties. Classy!

That being said, this album really is a masterpiece! In the context of my heavy metal deep dive, it’s the first band/artist (so far) I hadn’t heard of previously, and it’s definitely one of my favorite 70s album (also so far). It just immediately pulls you in and keeps you hooked, with no slower ballad or instrumental to ruin the dynamic of the album. It has what I would describe as a heavy rock’n’roll feel, with songs like Hey Baby being very obviously rooted in rock’n’roll.

The main themes of this album are definitely women, as well as how badass and rebel Ted and his gang are. Some of the lyrics are pretty repetitive, and others are really good, so it’s a bit of a mixed bag on that side, but I found the music always on point. Stranglehold is an amazing song but because it’s over 8min long and keeps changing style, it feels like a whole album encapsulated in a song, which is a bit disorienting. Just What The Doctor Ordered is the mandatory “I love rock’n’roll” song, and I love it! You Make Me Feel Right At Home was quickly added to my love playlist, and I think that Queen Of The Forest is my favorite!

#TedNugent #ikolDiscoversMetal

"Sabotage" by Black Sabbath, released 28.07.1975

This is Sabbath's 6th album, and the last one I'll review before a while, as most fans agree that this is the last of Ozzy’s good albums - and given I'm not a fan, I won't take too much of my time listening to their lesser albums when I can listen to some music I actually like.

So this album is named Sabotage because the band was in the middle of lawyer battles with their previous management, and they felt like they were being attacked and sabotaged from all sides. This feeling also shows in some of the lyrics, like in The Writ where they very explicitly argue against their management and the music industry. We can see they were getting tired of their stardom life as they have at least two songs (Megalomania & Am I Going Insane (Radio)) talking at length about the disillusionment about being a rock star, and quite a bit of lyrics about mental illnesses (from schizophrenia and paranoia to depression).

I quite liked this album – for a Black Sabbath album, that is. The proto-thrash song Symptom of the Universe is really good, and a few others like Hole in the Sky and The Writ are almost heavy enough for me! There’s still too many soft moments in between for me to really appreciate the full album, but still, it feels like we’re finally getting somewhere with this band! Too bad it apparently just goes downhill from here...

#BlackSabbath #ikolDiscoversMetal

"Rocka Rolla" by Judas Priest, released 06.09.1974

Alright, so Rocka Rolla is on nobody's list of best heavy metal albums you have to listen to, but it's the debut album of one of my very favorite bands, so I have to write about it anyway!

This album can barely be considered hard rock, and it has some pretty boring songs, but it also has a few good ones. In his autobiography, Halford mentions that they didn't have any control over the mixing of the songs, and that when they listened to the finished album for the first time, they were disappointed that the producer softened their music significantly. Whatever the reason, this album was a complete flop and when compared to any of their other albums, their style is unrecognizable.

The themes of this album are a bit all over the place, from the classic “music is awesome” song, to the relationship problems one, to a surprisingly poetic ode to winter, to several songs about looking back at your life as an old man – which loses a bit of edge when sang by 20 years old boys. Musically it’s also a bit all over the place, and overall not amazing, although I would say that you get a hint that they have some potential.

My favorite songs from this album are Rocka Rolla, Cheater and Never Satisfied. I will also add Winter and Deep Freeze to my metal yule playlist.

#ikolDiscoversMetal #JudasPriest

"Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, released 01.12.1973

Apparently, the band was completely burnt out from their world tour and their drug abuse and didn't manage to write a single new song for a long time, even thinking they were done for at some point. Inspiration came back to them after all, and this became their best critically acclaimed album.

I was surprised to immediately love the starting riff of the album, from the title track, which sounded heavier and more up my alley than most previous Sabbath hits - closer to what I liked in their Paranoid album.
There were quite a lot of great songs on this album. It was hard to pick a favorite, between Sabbra Cadabra, Killing Yourself to Live and Looking for Today. I guess the only one I didn't like is Fluff, the mandatory instrumental.

The themes of this album are a lot of criticism of the music industry & the rock'n'roll lifestyle, as well as some vague political stuff, and a few very lyrical songs about the miracle of birth and life.
One song, Killing Yourself to Live, was writen by Geezer Butler when he was in the hospital for alcohol-induced kidney problems (relatable, except for the alcohol part). That same song has a very trans anthem-y part that I love : "The colors of my life are all different somehow / Little boy blue's a big girl now / So you think it's me who's strange / But you've never had to make the change".

#ikolDiscoversMetal #blacksabbath

"Billion Dollar Babies" by Alice Cooper, released 25.02.1973

This is another hard rock album, rather than heavy metal, but Alice Cooper was quite influential in the visual aspect of metal - as an early shock rock band, their stage shows included lots of fake blood and acted murders.
Another thing to note is that this album is from the band Alice Cooper, not to be mixed with the solo career of the lead singer who adopted the name for himself later on.

The title of the album, Billion Dollar Babies, apparently refers to the fact that the band was shocked to find themselves so successful, and as if to prove them right, this album became their most famous of all.
The band described this album as being about people's "sick perversions", and among those we can find necrophilia (I Love the Dead), sexual harassment (Raped and Freezin'), narcissism (Sick Things), politics (Elected) and... dentists (Unfinished Sweet)?

I quite liked this album! It still doesn't scratch that metal itch for me, but it does have really good songs and I liked the themes and the way they were dealt with.
So far, it looks like this album has the best ratio of songs I liked vs disliked, and the fact that there's no instrumental is definitely helping tip the scales. My favorite songs are Billion Dollar Babies, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Generation Landslide & Unfinished Sweet. There's no song I would automatically skip (a first!) but the one I liked less was Mary Ann I suppose, because ballads aren't really my thing - the other ballad on this album, I Love the Dead, gets a pass for being about necrophilia, which immediately makes it more metal.

#ikolDiscoversMetal #alicecooper

"Vol. 4" by Black Sabbath, released 25/09/1972

And back to Black Sabbath we go - that's 4 albums in 2 years, you can't blame them for being unproductive!

So I believe at this point it's been clear that I'm not a huge fan of Black Sabbath. I think their music is overall quite good, but usually not what I'm in the mood for when I want to listen to metal. Well, this album didn't make me change my mind! Still very good, still very much not my style.
Actually, the first time I listened to it, I accidentally put it on shuffle and thought - what the hell is that? I know the band was completely coked up making this album (apparently getting powder-filled loudspeakers delivered to the studio...), but I thought it was supposed to be a legendary album? When I listened to it in the correct order it made more sense and I started to appreciate it.

The themes of this album are classic Sabbath themes: depression, drugs (switching from weed-related to cocaine-related), criticism of war and western societies, as well as... lots of break up songs.
As I mentioned, most songs are quite good. My favorite one is definitely Supernaut - it has a great melody and grandiose lyrics. Snowblind has some surprisingly very poetic lyrics about the highs and lows of consuming cocaine, and Under the Sun / Every Day Comes and Goes is interesting because it's about not following religions and only believing in yourself, which runs contrary to the very pro-faith song After Forever on their previous album.
Some that I liked less are the Bowie-like Changes, the weirdest instrumental track ever FX (created when they realized hitting guitar strings with various objects produced strange sounds) and Laguna Sunrise, another instrumental (maybe one day I'll like an instrumental, but I quite doubt it).

#ikolDiscoversMetal #BlackSabbath

"Machine Head" by Deep Purple, released 25/03/1972

Finally something other than Black Sabbath is happening!

So, I believe the general consensus is that Deep Purple, even in their Machine Head time, wasn't really a heavy metal band. They used to do psychedelic rock, and this album is more of a hard rock one, but there are some metal-ish tracks, and metal bands for decades to come were to get inspired by it, so that's why it's present in my metal journey.

Deep Purple is a legendary band, and their biggest hits come from this album, namely Smoke on the Water and Highway Star. Even if you believe you know nothing from Deep Purple, go listen to Smoke on the Water and I can pretty much guarantee that you will know the intro riff, if nothing else. The funny thing about these two songs is that the themes are quite surprising (at least in my opinion): Highway Star is about... a car (and sure, that's a classic rock theme, but also pretty bland I think?), and Smoke on the Water is about the crazy but true story of the band's recording studio (a Swiss hotel) burning to the ground mere hours before they were to record this album. Great that they were able to turn this annoying experience into a huge hit!

But there's more to this album than these two amazing classics! I love most of the songs, except maybe Lazy because a 4min long instrumental before any lyric happens is a bit too much for me, and When A Blind Man Cries because I'm not into (apparently mandatory?) rock ballads. On the other hand, Never Before is definitely one of my top favorites, and actually it was the first single to be released from this album!

Overall this was a really good album! A lot of great, solid rock songs that became classics. What's also interesting is that there's a lot of organs and harmonica solos in it. It's not really my thing but it works pretty well here.

#ikolDiscoversMetal #DeepPurple

"Master of Reality" by Black Sabbath, released 21/07/1971

Yet another great - although still a bit too close to psychedelic rock for me - album by Black Sabbath!

The themes follow the ones from the previous album, that is drugs and anti-war sentiment, although we are getting some more religious songs this time (After Forever, Lord of This World). My theory is that the christian band members got a bit overwhelmed by their satanist reputation and tried to correct the record.

My absolute favorite song of this album is Sweet Leaf, a cool love song to marijuana which has a great melody.
A close second is After Forever, I think the beginning of the lyrics are amazing ("Have you ever thought about your soul / Can it be saved? / Or perhaps you think / That when you are dead / You just stay in your grave") but unfortunately it quickly turns into a very pro-christianity lecture that kinda spoils the song for me...
Children of the Grave (about nuclear war), Lord of This World (against Satan) and Into the Void (the classic scifi song of the album) are also very iconic songs.
Honestly even the songs that are not really my thing like instrumentals (Embryo, Orchid) and Solitude (a very chill song that still sounded good and has interesting lyrics) are worth listening to.

#ikolDiscoversMetal #BlackSabbath

"Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, released 18/09/1970

Black Sabbath's second album was released just 7 months after their first one, as they tried to capitalize on their initial success. Some consider it the best heavy metal album of all time, and even though Black Sabbath isn't my favorite band, I have to agree that it's amazing!

The themes in this album are mostly war (against rich warmongers in the famous War Pigs, about the drugs US soldiers in Vietnam took to escape reality in Hand of Doom, and nuclear fallout in Electric Funeral), as well as a side of science fiction (cruising the stars with your lover in Planet Caravan, and the story of a man who got turned into iron after traveling back in time to stop an apocalypse in Iron Man), as well as general drug-induced fantasies (pot-paranoia and depression in Paranoia, and skinhead fights in Fairies Wear Boots).

The three most famous songs on this album are also Black Sabbath's most famous songs: War Pigs, Paranoia and Iron Man. I love them, and feel like Electric Funeral and Hand of Doom are almost as good. As I mentioned earlier, this whole album is golden.
Planet Caravan is a very soft song, contrasting with the rest of the album, but surprisingly I like it, and I think it provides a needed rest between the first, very powerful songs of the album.
Interestingly enough, Iron Man was not written about the Marvel character, even though it has since then been used by Marvel for promotional use.

#ikolDiscoversMetal #BlackSabbath

"Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, released Friday the 13th, February 1970

Black Sabbath's first album is often considered the first heavy metal album ever.
I quite like it, but I also feel like it's a bit too close to blues & psychedelic rock for my taste. Those are genres I like occasionally, but not really when I want to listen to metal. Actually, it's quite funny because if you look at pictures of Black Sabbath from the early 1970s they look way more like hippies than metalheads!

Fun fact is that apparently the band was annoyed to notice that so many satanists and wiccans flocked to their show after the release of this album... which is hilarious given the name they chose and the themes they sing about.

My favorite tracks on this album are probably Black Sabbath and N.I.B.

I love that they have a song about Gandalf (The Wizard), and I really like it although there's a bit too much harmonica in there for me...

#ikolDiscoversMetal #BlackSabbath

So yeah I think I'll write some notes about the albums I'm listening to in this thread!

They'll be mostly for myself, as writing down my thoughts often helps with clarity and remembering. But don't hesitate to comment if you feel like it, any discussion is welcome!

Please keep in mind that I have zero musical theoretical knowledge so when I say I like (or dislike) a song it's not going to be about the musical virtuosity of the band or how they referenced this or that but just about whether I like (or dislike) the song 😅​

#ikolDiscoversMetal

Then I found a nice podcast named Heavy Metal 101, where two people discuss the history of metal.
Both are scholars in the field of classical music (one with a Phd, the other working on it), and one knows a lot about metal, whereas the other has never listened to any.

It's really cool to listen to these teacher/student interactions as my goal is to learn a lot!
And the classical music background brings a lot of interesting things to the table too.

So far they only talked about 70s metal (which was super interesting) but now they just started season 2 which is going to be about the 80s! I'm excited!

They also compiled an "essential 70s metal list" that I'm using to discover more artists & albums.

#ikolDiscoversMetal

So for a bit of background, I listened to some famous metal & hard rock bands when I was a teenager, but haven't listened to them in the last 10-15 years.

Also I didn't listen to a lot, mainly Metallica, Guns'n'Roses, Kiss... yeah that's about it I guess?

And now thanks to Stranger Things (of course) and Eddie (who's surprised?) I started listening to it again more seriously and I'm really enjoying it!

There's so much to listen to and discover that it can be overwhelming, but I'm trying to take my time and enjoy the journey.

I started by listening to some famous 80s bands & so far my favorites are Dio and Judas Priest.

#ikolDiscoversMetal (use to mute thread) #metal #metalmusic