Celtic Frost – Morbid Tales. Just stunning. The recording / production have never dated. Like a lot of the best metal, there’s a strong sense of humour here. A towering work of art.
Venom – Black Metal. Arguably (probably) instigated an entire genre. I’ve never read up on the history of Venom, but there has to be a punk rock influence in here – the whole enterprise is gloriously free of the past.
Motorhead – Motorhead. Apologies for the lack of Umlauts. But yeah. From start to finish, just a great record. Love the subtle use of distortion: not overstated, saying „this band is too loud for the recording apparatus“.
Slayer – Reign In Blood. It kind of didn’t get any better than this. The LP is about 24 minutes long – and it’s difficult not to love an LP that does so much in such a short space of time. It’s an exhausting listen, in much the same way as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an exhausting read, despite being only covering about 100 pages. I’m pretty sure Seb Rochford has mentioned Slayer in interviews more than once. Maybe that’s why Acoustic Ladyland clicked first time I heard them? Who knows. Fuck knows. But that’s given me an idea. I will do a Jazz Lifers at some point.
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden. Great tune after great tune. Not sure how metal this is though. I hear elements of prog in it, elements of the genre known as „pub rock“ (which despite the slightly pejorative connotation, was not a bad genre). The intro to Phantom of the Opera – amazing.
Iron Maiden – Somewhere In Time. Tempus fugit. By now there was a different singer, and the band were very much in the metal sphere. Brilliant use of operatic vocal style in the line „tiiime is aaalways on myyy siiiide“. I think this LP is themed around time travel, but I haven’t ever read the lyric sheet so I don’t know for sure. A time travel themed metal record with a track named for an Alan Sillitoe short story. What’s not to like?
There are other records that could conceivably also fit here – 1984 (Van Halen). Surfing With The Alien (Joe Satriani), 1989 (Ryan Adams), Streetcleaner (Godflesh), Diadem of 12 Stars (Wolves In The Throne Room) and others. But where does rock end and metal begin?