325: EMPLOYED TO SERVE

The combination of death metal heaviness and hardcore aggression Employed to Serve create makes for some of the intense music in their particular scene. It also means they tend to appeal to multiple demographics, from metalcore kids looking for something with extra bite, to an older death metal crowd looking for something new and fresh. …

315: BLACK SABBATH

On any given day, the heavy metal genre might as well be subtitled 'Music Derivative of Black Sabbath'.Lars Ulrich Today’s band, our final Icon, was always going to be Black Sabbath. I’ve known since January. Because today, ten years ago (11/11/11), Black Sabbath reunited, and it was the biggest metal news in years. That’s just …

314: THE BEATLES

When it comes to The Beatles, it is simply impossible to overstate the impact they have made on musical culture. Within a period of just ten years, they made a bigger influence on rock and pop music than any other group in recorded history. While they started as a 50s rock and roll band, the …

313: MOTÖRHEAD

When Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister was kicked out of Hawkwind in 1975, he set about forming a new band, one that took inspiration from the punk scene and played ‘fast and vicious’. Little did anybody realise what the time, but this would set in motion the birth of a band whose sound would directly inspire the …

312: JUDAS PRIEST

I’m not sure I could better express Judas Priest’s importance than Sam Dunn did, son I’m going to start by sharing that… Black Sabbath's audience was left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars …

310: RAINBOW

When Ritchie Blackmore had two songs rejected by Deep Purple he chose to record them with Elf frontman Ronnie James Dio. The experience had been such a positive one that they ultimately recorded a full album as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. This would ultimately lead to him leaving Deep Purple. There are two specific elements of …