10 Perfect Metal Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

It would take a while before the real titans of metal actually began to explode. Whereas bands like Black Sabbath had been proud to fly the flag for the darker side of hard rock, you would be hardpressed to find many bands in the '70s that actually self identified as metal. Once the prog side of the decade faded though, we got metal in all its glory coming out of England.

Billed as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the entire hard rock scene seemed to be getting a lot more nasty, with bands like Def Leppard also having a few hits around this time. If we're talking about the metal album that started it all for bands, Iron Maiden's debut was really ground zero, with Steve Harris already mining the traditional heavy metal sounds that would define the band to this day, from the galloping sounds of the bass to the more theatrical elements already creeping in on a song like Phantom of the Opera.

Even if Bruce Dickinson wasn't in the band yet, vocalist Paul Di'Anno is also in his prime here is well, bringing a bit of a punk edge to their sound while also having the vocal chops to pull off something like Prowler. There was definitely some room for improvement a few years down the line, but as the rest of England was getting nasty, this was the sound of the genre discovering its teeth for the first time.