Best metal bands that are not prog metal - Progressive Rock Music Forum

cold103 wrote:

It's ok with me if they're more hard-rock than metal Smile

if you are ok with this then definitely High Tide and Budgie. an example track each:

High Tide:

Budgie:

A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta

If you're looking for 70s metal, the only heavy metal band from the 70s I can think of that isn't on the progarchives is Judas Priest. Try their album Stained Class:

How about Skyclad?

BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.

I never knew Skyclad went that hard lol

I thought they were standard heavy metal, but there's a lot of thrash here.

Atavachron wrote:

Let's get something straight-- Neither UH nor LZ were heavy metal. I'm sorry, they just weren't. Sabbath yeah, but in the way that my old Zenith b&w TV was to my big flatscreen.

The bands doing true metal before Metal was a thing were tiny in number and in many cases unnoticed.

You mean like Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Judas Priest and lesser known bands like High Tide, Buffalo, Budgie, Sir Lord Baltimore, Lucifer's Friend and Riot? I think there's more of these proto metal bands than you might think. I think metal music archives still has a proto metal section which lists a lot of these bands.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 24 2023 at 13:02

Gerinski wrote:

Some are listed in PA some are not. When I was younger I used to like virtuoso-guitar-oriented metal such as those endorsed by Mike Varney and Shrapnel Records in the late 80s and 90s.

Many of them often had terrible rhythmic sections and their albums were just a showcase for their guitar technique, but when they got accompanied by a good rhythm section and some decent keyboardist some of them produced great metal albums.

Obviously Steve Vai. Passion and Warfare will remain in history as a seminal album of the modern electric guitar.

Shawn Lane. His 2 albums Powers of Ten and The Tri-Tone Fascination are masterpieces. What a pity that he passed away so young, he was one of the best guitarists around. More fusion than metal, with even some classical music thrown in.

Richie Kotzen: The Inner Galactic Fusion Experience. A masterpiece of metal-fusion.

Greg Howe. Five, another great metal-fusion album

Richie Kotzen & Greg Howe. Tilt, masterpìece of metal-fusion

Extreme. Three Sides of Every Story. The most Proggy of their albums by far, it has caused several discussions about adding the band to PA. Pornograffity is a great metal album as well, very impressive guitar work by Nuno.

Jeff Watson. Lone Ranger, including guest appearances by Allan Holdsworth and Steve Morse.

I could not ommit Yngwie Malmsteen, Rising Force was also a seminal album in the history of electric lead guitar, as well as his Concerto Suite for Guitar and Orchestra.

Bozzio - Levin - Stevens. Their 2 albums are great metal-fusion.

Of the Shrapnel Records material, I had Viscious Rumors albums, which was where Vinnie Moore started. And of shred guitar album with prog tendencies, Vinnie Moore's first two albums, Mind's Eye and Time Odyssey are must mentions. The second has a pre-Dream Theater Jordan Rudess on keyboards.

Atavachron wrote:

^ Yes, exactly like Motorhead and Priest (though I cited Priest days ago in the 'Other Hard Rock/Metal' thread as being important early heavy rock/proto met)... and absolutely High Tide, Buffalo and Budgie.

Not metal yet, my friend, and in some cases not metal at all. High Tide? Really?

Did you mean to say Lucifer's Friend instead of High Tide the first time? Otherwise, I'm not sure why you would agree then question it.

^You said "absolutely" high tide, Buffalo and Budgie so I assumed you meant all three qualified. I have seen HT mentioned as proto prog metal (their second is listed as proto metal on metal music archives) and metal for Budgie (MMA lists them as not proto metal but heavy metal and they seem picky about what they consider to be true HM especially for early stuff).

cold103 wrote:

PhideauxFan wrote:

From the 70's: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Scorpions, Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Priest, Rainbow, UFO, Queen, Alice Cooper, Thin Lizzy, Mountain, Kiss (Music From The Elder), Ted Nugent (for the track Stranglehold), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Blackfoot (for the track Highway Song).

Thanks! Could you mention the best album(s) / song(s) by each?

Done !

I don't like prog metal at all and I don't include here bands that are already in ProgArchives (among which Zeppelin, Sabbath and BöC that I love deeply) but for me Judas Priest, UFO, Scorpions (pre-1985), Grand Funk, Demon (of the old guard) are all excellent bands. I have a soft spot for Demon that inexplicably are not in PA. But Judas Priest for me are among the greatest. I recently saw them live and I still have goospebumps for what Halford can do at 70 yo. And they do get proggy ...