← Movements
NWOBHM
United Kingdom1979–1983
The British eruption that reinvented metal in the late 1970s and set the sound of the decade that followed.
United Kingdom1979–1983
The British eruption that reinvented metal in the late 1970s and set the sound of the decade that followed.
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was a burst of young bands that, between 1979 and 1983, took punk's energy and self-reliance and applied them to heavy metal. They recorded on their own, released through tiny labels and played faster than the previous generation cared for. The movement pulled British metal out of its post-Sabbath lethargy and produced the vocabulary the rest of the world would copy: harmonised twin guitars, quickened tempos and a stance of independence. Iron Maiden and Saxon are its most enduring names; Motörhead, though older and always apart, ran alongside it and is inseparable from the period. The echo was immediate — without the NWOBHM there would be no American thrash and no German power metal.
