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Heavy Metal Thunder Proto-Metal / Hard Rock

Genres Heavy Metal Proto-Metal / Hard Rock

Proto-Metal / Hard Rock

The raw material, before anyone had a word for it β€” blues rock played too loud and too mean to still be blues.

Peak years
1966 – 1974
Origin
UK / USA (Detroit)
Family
Heavy Metal Origins
Bands here
13

Start here

Two records in order of how easy they are to get into β€” which is not the same as best first.

  1. Kick Out the Jams MC5, 1969 The landmark

    Recorded live at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit over two nights in October 1968 and released the following February β€” a debut album with no studio version of anything on it. Not metal, but the volume, the politics and the sheer hostility are where a lot of metal comes from.

    Listen to Kick Out the Jams

  2. Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls Coven, 1969

    Occult imagery, inverted crosses and a track called Black Sabbath, a year before Black Sabbath. Musically closer to psychedelic rock than to metal, which is why it sits in proto-metal rather than anywhere heavier.

    Listen to Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls

What it sounds like

Blues rock, played too loud and with the amps failing. Everything here predates the word "metal": twelve-bar structures and pentatonic riffs, but delivered with a volume and aggression that the blues never had, and often with a fuzz pedal doing damage nobody had intended. Vocals are shouted or wailed. Organ is as likely as a second guitar. Compared with the heavy metal it turned into, the songs are looser, the riffs are less deliberate and the menace is accidental rather than designed β€” these bands were making rock music harder, not inventing a genre. The Detroit records in particular sound like a fight rather than a performance, which is exactly why they still work.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 2 out of 5
  • Aggression 2 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 2 out of 5
  • Melody 4 out of 5

Where the name came from

'Proto-' from the Greek protos, meaning first. Applied retrospectively by critics and collectors to the late-1960s bands who had assembled most of metal's vocabulary before anyone had a word for it β€” Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum (1968) is often called the first genuinely heavy record.

The bands

Hear these first

  • MC5 USA
  • The Stooges USA
  • Coven USA
  • AC/DC Australia
  • Rose Tattoo Australia

And 8 more

  • Ted Nugent USA
  • Mitch Ryder USA
  • Triumph Canada
  • Angels Australia
  • Cold Chisel Australia
  • Camerton Mongolia
  • Π₯ΡƒΡ€Π΄ (Khurd) Mongolia
  • Нисванис (Nisvanis) Mongolia

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • Detroit Detroit Proto-Metal 4 bands
  • Australia Australian Metal 4 bands
  • Mongolia Mongolian Folk Metal & Hunnu Rock 3 bands

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.