70s to Early 80s Prog Metal?

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Ok, I just figured out who it was by finding the band mentioned on a list on rym from our very own Silly Puppy. The band was called Legend and their album(from 1979) was called "from the fjords." Both o's have umlauts though. If SP replies on here then maybe he can provide more information about them. Other than that maybe Budgie. I'm not overly familiar with them but I know that like Uriah Heep they did have some progressive elements. Like with UH I'm not sure everyone would call them metal though(same thing with Rush actually). I guess you probably already know about Watchtower although they were slightly later.

Jeffro wrote: Cristi wrote: And Rush is not prog metal either, but was a big influence on the genre though.  Yes, Rush was not a prog metal band but there are pieces of their music from Caress of Steel through Hemispheres that could be perhaps proto-prog metal, thus the influence on the genre.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: siLLy puPPy wrote: Depending on what you call metal (i call 70s proto-metal or hard rock) Check out this list i made years ago https://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/albums-that-were-fundamental-in-creating-progressive-metal/ While I do think most of what came out in the 70's was proto metal or hard rock there was some true heavy metal in my opinion such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Motorhead and maybe also Scorpions, Budgie, UFO and Thin Lizzy depending on your definition. Also, the NY based band Riot released actual heavy metal albums before the end of the 70's as did a few others. Most NWOBHM albums were released in 80 or later though.

I consider some Led Zeppelin songs especially "dazed and confused" and "communication breakdown"(and maybe a few others) to be true metal but I agree that for the most part they were hard rock. You could say the same about Queen who had some metal songs but over all were probably closer to hard rock. Black Sabbath were probably the first true metal band. Also, I'm a big advocate of the term proto metal. I think there was some grey area with some of the earlier bands as far as being hard rock vs metal so I prefer to use the term proto metal(or even heavy rock). The aforementioned Led Zeppelin would qualify but also Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and others.

I think another element which marked the departure of Heavy Metal from Hard Rock was speed. Of course not in all the songs, but in average, Heavy Metal has faster guitar licks and frequently double kick-drum rhythm bases.

richardh wrote: Deep Purple often played at break neck speed though. Speed King and Fireball being obvious examples.

tribalfusions wrote: A lot of good mentions here and. I have to chime in on the discussion about Rainbow with Dio. For me that's the missing link with way more keyboard and non-pentatonic riffing (quite different from Purple) and it influenced so many prog metal and power metal bands. Those early Rainbow albums are some of my favorite music Stargazer, Tarot Woman, Gates of Babylon or even the delicate Rainbow Eyes and Temple of the King. Along with Uli Jon Roth's playing in the Scorpions and his early Electric Sun work, early Michael Schenker Group, Rush and Priest on Sad Wings of Destiny you have a lot of the elements of prog metal to which of course we can add all the other prog and metal classics we all know as well as some fusion like Mahavishnu, Holdsworth and Al Di Meola etc which impacted guitarists in particular across many genres.