Traditional Heavy Metal
tagStarted 1976Peak 1980-1988Last big hit still active
Located in 2 routes
Classic metal before extreme subgenres: galloping or mid-paced riffs, twin-guitar harmonies, melodic clean vocals reaching into a soaring high register, anthemic choruses, and dual lead solos. Lyrics lean to fantasy, history, and steel-and-leather defiance. Tight, melodic, and built around the heroic vocal and dueling-guitar interplay.
History
Crystallized when Judas Priest and Iron Maiden refined the Sabbath/Priest blueprint into a faster, more melodic and tightly structured form in the late 70s, joined by Dio-era Rainbow and US acts like Manowar and Armored Saint. It set the rule-book that thrash, power, and speed metal would later accelerate or distort, and endures as the genre's bedrock template.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- AllMusic
- Wikipedia (Heavy metal music)
- Encyclopaedia Metallum
- Louder/Metal Hammer