Francis Leach’s beginners’ guide to heavy metal

Some classics of the heavy metal genre, brought to you by Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Sepultura and Pantera.

OK, a life hack from an old hack.

If you’re planning a midlife crisis – make it a loud one.

I mean a force 10, ear-spiting, guitar-smoking, cod-piece-wearing, wee-man-on-a-mountain-top, screaming-banshee loud one.

I’m talking exploding flash pots and bullet belts, black t-shirts and patched battle jackets, double kick drums, and an F-35 fighter buzzing your bedroom loud.

I’m talking Heavy Metal.

Your humble writer spent a chunk of his young life as the accidental overlord of the powerchord. Just how I became the host of Triple J’s legendary “3 Hours of Power” in the 90s is a tale of chaotic opportunism, good fortune and bold-as-brass chutzpah that will be worth the telling all on its own one day.

Suffice to say, my relationship with metal started as a marriage of convenience (I needed a job) and blossomed into something special.

I’ve always had catholic tastes in music, and there have been times when my metal years have slipped, just a marker of a time and place long ago.

Recently, though, that’s begun to turn. I’ve found myself flipping to the back of my vinyl collection and dropping the needle down on some of the dark-and-heavy stuff and getting a kick out of the big-assed audacity of it all.

Let’s be clear. If it’s enlightenment and insight into the human condition you’re looking for, best you grab the hash pipe and take a left turn down Tame Impala Avenue or get on the off ramp for John Butler Highway.

Metal is fantastically and knowingly daft, playfully naughty in a school-kid-sipping-the-priest’s-sacramental-wine-whilst-the-bastard-isn’t-looking kinda way.

It’s loud, obnoxious and wild and it knows it. It’s rock n roll’s ugly cousin and it’s quite OK with that. And it’s fun. So much fun.

Sidebar here – the cultural revolutionaries amongst you are right to point out that metal is, as they say “problematic”. It’s almost universally male, white and heteronormative (save Judas Priest and the hair metal set in lipstick and spandex).

All of that is true, but as long as it’s not the only listening on your menu, there is opportunity for a well-rounded listening palate.

That said, my experience of heavy metal fans are that they are the most devoted, inclusive, reverent, polite and knowledgeable tribe around. Sure, all that doomsday black and cave man growling can be startling, but it’s as much cos-play and piss-take as your average Comic-Con shindig.

To assist with your journey to embrace the inner bullet-head you never knew you had, I’ve prepared a heavy metal beginners list.

BLACK SABBATH – PARANOID (1970)

Whilst the counter-culture was enduring a shuddering comedown from the death of the 60s, this record emerged from the mists of industrial Birmingham in the UK to drive a stake through its heart.

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Ozzy Osbourne may have become a reality TV goofball in his old age, but as the harbinger of doom on Black Sabbath’s second album, “Paranoid”, he all but invents Heavy Metal in the space of 42 minutes.

From the menace and foreboding of “War Pigs”, the piledriving title track, through to the prog-rock dystopia of “Iron Man”, Sabbath burnt a trail for everyone else to follow.

IRON MAIDEN – THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST (1982)

Iron Maiden was already ahead of the pack as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the early 80s when they unleashed this, their third studio album in March of 1982.

It’s the first Maiden album to feature its now legendary frontman, Bruce Dickinson, and it cemented its status as the kings of 80s metal and public enemy number one for god-botherers who feared their kiddies had been seduced by the devil’s music.

The apocalyptic book of revelations fantasy of the title track is still wild enough to set off a moral panic today. “Run to the Hills” was the big hit, and is one of the first songs I ever heard that confronted the devastation meted out to Indigenous cultures.

And then there is artist Derek Riggs’ cover art, which launched a million t-shirts for kids to scare their parents with for generations to come.

METALLICA – MASTER OF PUPPETS (1986)

Thrash Metal. It’s as 80s as Rubik’s Cubes and Pac-Man. And this record is its gospel.

What I love about these early Metallica albums is how intense, lean and clean they are. Critics decry the production on “Master of Puppets”, claiming that it’s far too compressed, robbing the album of its real dynamics.

I prefer to think of each song hitting with the force of an artillery shell. The opening combination of “Battery” and the title track will have you crunching out air guitar riffs within minutes.

PANTERA – VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER (1992)

Well, you can’t say you didn’t know what you were in for – it’s all in the title.

As Metal met the new age of grunge in the early 90s, Pantera took one look and said, ‘Let’s see what you’ve got!’, then threw this monster into the world.

Pantera’s sixth album is so stacked with bone-crunching riffs it feels like you need a mouthguard just to listen to the thing. Songs like “Walk”, “F*cking Hostile” and “No Good (Attack The Radical)” don’t hold back.

SEPULTURA – ROOTS (1996)

Roaring out of the global south came Brazil’s Sepultura. “Roots” was the band’s sixth album and like its predecessor, “Chaos AD”, it saw the band incorporating percussion and rhythms from traditional Brazilian music, creating a tornado of power chords and Latin beats that broke new ground.

Salsa Metal, anyone? I say hell yeah!