Lucifer's Friend (1970)

The same year as Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut, German band Lucifer's Friend released a similarly titled effort to the masses. Sporting a somewhat disturbing and clever album cover, the record featured the heavy guitar work of Peter Hesslein supported by the rhythm section of Dieter Horns on bass and Joachim Rietenbach on drums interlaced with the keyboard skills of Peter Hecht. Providing vocals was the Briton John Lawton, who had a stint in Uriah Heep in the late 70s. I have heard Lawton described as a cross between Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio, which I definitely hear.

While many albums of this era are questionable in terms of whether or not they can be termed heavy metal, this is not one of those. The riffs on this album stand shoulder to should with Sabbath's own debut in terms of heaviness. While the keyboards bright a bit of lightness to the darker guitar notes, this is still a straight out heavy rock record. From the brilliant opener Ride in the Sky, which features a blaring French horn used with wicked effectiveness (like an angry elephant), to the driving self-titled finale, "LF" is one of the best heavy records of the early 70s. This rambunctious mix of guitars and keyboards is where I would have liked Iron Butterfly to go after "Ball."

Unfortunately, Lucifer's Friend did not match the intensity of their first album (as an aside, all five members were in a band called Asterix that released an album the same year, but that's a discussion for another day). The follow-up, "Where the Groupies Killed the Blues," is a good album, but not as amazing as the predecessor. The next several albums were more jazzy and softer-edged, and it was not until 1981 that Lucifer's Friend came back with "Mean Machine," a heavy album that was a 'too little, too late' affair. Still, "LF" remains a landmark album in the heavy metal world, and fans of the genre unfamiliar with such tunes as Toxic Shadows should acquaint themselves with all reasonable haste.

Only the Living Can Die

In 1980, the cover of Volume 12, Issue 5 of Creem Magazine featured an imposing photograph of Judas Priest singer Rob Halford. Decked in his trademark look of black leather, chains and studs, the caption cried, "Back From The Dead. HEAVY METAL. Here Come The Goons."

I first saw this cover in the 1990s while a teenager, a metalhead in a time when Heavy Metal had been declared dead, although the independent labels were keeping the genre flourishing underground. I found this issue of Creem fascinating for a number of reasons. Although I would never dress that way, I thought Halford looked really cool. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was at its height in the fall of 1980, but I did not recognize a number of the bands listed on the cover, and (both now and then) I realize a number of them pre-date the launch of the NWOBHM. Finally, and this is most important to the blog, if Heavy Metal had "died" and been resurrected, what exactly died? If there was a New Wave, what was the Old Wave?

While debate may arise over some of these bands, we can list a few metal groups from the early 70s. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Alice Cooper all got their start around 1969, give or take a year or two. If you dig a little deeper, one can list Thin Lizzy, UFO and Uriah Heep. After that, it begins to get a little sketchy in the public consciousness. Can we list 10, maybe 20 bands? Is that enough for a movement? Does that create a genre? There had to have been something going on, and I wanted to find out who those bands were, the unsung and forgotten.

Thanks to the boom of the world wide web in the late 90s and the creation of websites like YouTube in the middle of the 00s, people like me have been able to learn about the bands before Aerosmith and AC/DC. I was able to hear the bands that influenced groups like Judas Priest, who in turn inspired one of the most popular and enduring genres of modern music. What I'd like to do is discuss that here and catalog the records and songs that emerged from the protoplasm of heavy music.