350: KING DIAMOND

King Diamond is heavy metal royalty. It’s right there in the name. As the frontman for Mercyful Fate, he (and the band as a whole) were instrumental to the first wave of black metal, as well as influencing metal as a whole in the early 80s. Mercyful Fate incorporated the 70s rock sound, particularly prog …

338: GAAHLS WYRD

Gaahl has always been an iconic figure in black metal, and yet he seemingly exists outside of most of its more common traits. With his latest project, Gaahls Wyrd (I say ‘latest’, but they’ve been active since 2015), the vocals are more clean than not, the overall pace is slower than the average black metal …

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 …

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 …

311: DIO

When Ronnie James Dio left Black Sabbath, with drummer Vinny Appice in tow, he already had plans for his next venture. That venture was, of course, Dio. Dio functioned perfectly as a showcase for what had already been established via his stints in Rainbow and Black Sabbath - Ronnie James Dio’s voice and lyricism were …