The New Wave of British Heavy Metal : The Subgenre that Wasn't a Subgenre
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (or NWOBHM) wasn't new at all. Technically it's not even a metal subgenre. If metalheads weren't obsessive compulsive dorks, NWOBHM bands would be labeled under traditional heavy metal.
It's also the first dead genre. We’re gonna get into all that.
NWOBHM is more of a social undercurrent that gave birth to the first, classic iteration of metal. Bands who are labeled under that subgenre don’t share all that many qualities, except the fact they’re all from the same area. As we established in the previous chapter, metal was invented in Birmingham, England by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, John Michael Osborne and Bill Ward because living over there was shitty and disheartening. But England was overall a fucked up place to live in and other, less gloomy kids were angry.
What the fuck is NWOBhM and what the fuck does it even mean?
So yeah, England was a shitty, hostile place for teenagers in the 1970s. There was a recession underway from 1973 to 1975. Future prospects were fucking bleak and youngsters were angry. How did they express that anger? By fucking shit up and listening to rock music. Some of you might not be aware, but England's always been a hot bed for music and the arts in general. The Beatles are from there. So are Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and a prog rock weirdos Deep Purple. All known as forefathers of metal.
Now, how did rock turn into metal at a wider range than Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi just being gloomy weirdos? Although Judas Priest released their first record Rocka Rolla in 1974, it is very much a rock record. The almighty Priest didn’t turn into a metal band until 1976 when they released Sad Wings of Destiny. No, I believe the "oh shit" moment that triggered this revolution is when bassist and vocalist of Hawkwind Ian Fraser Kilmister got bored of being bassis and vocalist of Hawkwind Ian Fraser Kilmister.
It was not a case of Lemmy-did-a-thing-let’s-do-it-too kind of deal. It was more of a case of an already influent musician breaking out of his comfort zone and starting something entirely now. Namely playing Black Sabbath-like songs as fast as humanly possible. You have to understand how foundational is to metal. By doing this, he invented three metal genres: NWOBHM, speed metal and ultimately thrash metal, which in itself fast tracked the inception of more extreme forms of metal, like death and black metal.
That’s why metalheads worldwide loved that dude so fucking much. He was metal incarnate. Seriously, the violent of metalheads is way overplayed, but don’t say anything bad about Lemmy or you're gonna get slapped into a third degree concussion. The man is BE-LOVED.
NWOBHM kind of exploded from there. These were the years where punk rock was also coming together and the social movement of this New Wave of British Heavy Metal was almost as important as the music itself. These were young, pissed off dudes reclaiming their manhood through sonic aggression, defiance and fucking brotherhood. If we’re being honest here, it laid the foundation for what metal at large would become. Rock was a spectacle that turned into a catharsis and a lifestyle with NWOBHM.
The genre exploded and it went everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Who are the NWOBHM bands and why do they matter?
The most important and arguably only NWOBHM band left is Iron Maiden. Remember when I told you about the importance of punk rock, rising alongside NWOBHM as a social movement? Well, the first iteration of Iron Maiden was very much influenced by punk rock. Their first singer Paul Di’Anno was a rebellious, complicated dude who had that chip on his shoulder. Although he had this operatic presence on stage that would eventually characterize the band, his iteration of the band was darker, more streetwise.
He was eventually kicked out for being a drug addict and a pain in the ass in general and replaced by generational talent Bruce Dickinson who would carry on and turn this band into the most literate, weirdo progressive unit. I would like to tell you they had offspring and they… kind of did? But the way Maiden makes music is simply inimitable. There’s no one in history of NWOBHM and metal at large that sounds even remotely like them. But they were a major influence on what would become power metal.
They were too proggy and weird to be power metal, but their epicness inspired an entire movement of nerds.
Other NWOBHM bands that became important were Motörhead (which we will talk about in greater details in the chapter about thrash metal), Def Leppard and arguably Saxon, who are still alive and kicking today. Diamond Head is another very important band from that era, although they’re more of a cult pleasure than a success story. Most people know them because Metallica covered their song Am I Evil? as a B-side to the single for Creeping Death. They are your favourite band's favourite band.
Raven is another important NWOBHM band who carried their weight around, but otherwise that’s it. That’s the extent of the legacy of the genre. Some will argue based on their definition of what NWOBHM is, but since I believe Motörhead is primarily a speed/thrash band, there’s really nothing else to carry on here. It’s not the end of England's heritage on metal (far from it), but that wave of angry young dudes kind of petered out once life became easier in the United Kingom… or they branched out to other genres.
What's a dead genre?
I claim that NWOBHM is a dead genre because there was no defined characteristics to it. It was a time and a place more than it was a musical genre. Sure, it focused on fast paced songs. But punk rock and speed metal were doing the same and the bands that did were influenced by punk rock and speed metal more than anything else. Remember Lemmy? People were following that guy. Not a random label invented by. a music journalist four full years after that paradigm change. NWOBHM was a thing and not a thing.
The list of random NWOBHM band that disappeared into the wind or became maginal is almost endless: Battleaxe, Jaguar, Deep Machine, White Spirit, Pagan Altar, etc. You can almost all tie them up to another, still existing genre of metal too.
Also, did you know that the nomenclature itself New Wave of British Heavy Metal indicated a parallel to New Wave music which also emerged out of the the ashes of punk rock? NWOBHM was a thing that sprouted from another thing and never a thing in itself. It was never really "new" new. It was never really a new wave of anything particular either. It was just a thing that happened in England and that was very important and foundational because of a couple bands: Sabbath, Maiden, Motörhead and Priest mostly.
To be honest, I don't even thing I would be a "thing" anymore if it wasn't for Iron Maiden's long and celebrated career that carried what NWOBHM had of a sound into future decades. But no one else plays NWOBHM anymore. No one has played it for years except in nostalgic festival runs. Here are a couple songs that are emblematic of the genre that can help you get a better idea of what are its key characteristics… although I just wrote 1200 words trying to convince you there aren’t any. At least not really.
Iron Maiden - Running Free
Def Leppard - Photograph
Angel Witch - Angel Witch
See what I mean? NONE of these bands actually sounds like one another. One sounds like punk rock, the other sounds like classic rock and the other like speed metal. Although there are other dead metal genres (including speed metal, the next one we'll cover), none of them are as disjointed at NWOBHM. You'll see the influences of these bands further on in other subgenre analysis, but here it’s kind of done. After the Thatcher years in England, life became easier and Brit Pop was suddenly a thing.
I like Oasis as much as the next guy, are they the limped dick successor to a generation of angry blokes? Absolutely.
I had to cover NWOBHM for historical purposes, but the genre in itself doesn’t quite matter as much as its most important bands… which belong to other genres. Ugh, metal is fucking complicated. You know what New Wave of British Heavy Metal is now. Don’t think about it too much, I swear to you it’s going to make a lot more sense in the following months as we’re not going to focus on what-it’s-supposed-to-sound-like and more on how these bands would end up shaping the future of metal.
I swear to you that this is the most useless chapter in this odyssey in and of itself. I’m not sure how much you’ll get out of my encyclopedic knowledge of gorenoise, but as niche as it fucking is, it's actually not a dead music genre. Onwards to speed metal in July!
