Best Traditional Heavy Metal Albums

The Top Ten
1 The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden

This is an album that really helped bring this style of metal into the mainstream. There weren't many bands who did this kind of extra heavy (for the time) metal. Venom WAS one of the few, but none of them got into mainstream like Maiden managed to with The Number of the Beast. It changed not only Maiden's style, but all of metal's style as well. Though I do respect that Painkiller is #1. It's also one of my favorite albums of all time.

The 2nd greatest heavy metal record ever made, behind Master of Puppets. Children of the Damned, The Prisoner, 22 Acacia Avenue, Run to the Hills, Number of the Beast, and the great Hallowed be thy Name. An album of unforgettable tracks.

2 Painkiller - Judas Priest

All the tracks are just perfect with great guitar and drum solos, great vocalization, great chords, great harmony, great beat, great rhythm...

3 Powerslave - Iron Maiden

I like it, but it's a bit half-baked. There's a couple of forgettable instrumentals, 2-Minutes to Midnight is average, but then it nails it with Aces High, Powerslave and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The production is too trebly for Maiden's style of metal, too.

4 Paranoid - Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath is recognized as a rock band. WRONG! Black Sabbath is heavy metal and is the very first heavy metal band. People think of rock as more technical than metal but it is the other way around

Sorry. I jumped the gun on this one. Yes, Sabbath are metal, and metal is technical, though not always. I wouldn't say Hard Rock is technical though, depending on the band. AC/DC are the best on the planet, but they keep it very simple. Apologies.

What moron said they're a rock band? Of course they're metal. It was probably that half-wit that said Metallica weren't heavy, they're thrash.

So it was you? My goodness. Metal isn't technical? Go but Artillery's By Inheritance cd and get back to me.

5 Holy Diver - Dio

The lyrics on the title-track are classic Dio fantasy, but it's the way he sings that is just so mighty. He's one of a kind. The only time someone has come close was Chris Cornell on Jesus Christ Pose.

6 Indestructible - Disturbed
7 Rising - Rainbow

This and Between the Eyes were quality. Dio and Blackmore killing it.

8 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

The album that started it all, still the best 40+ years later

9 Ascendancy - Trivium

Traditional? Ok. It's a solid metalcore-inspired release from earlier in their career.

This is Nu metal.

10 Heaven and Hell - Black Sabbath

Best peace of Music men ever created

The Contenders
11 Phobia - Breaking Benjamin

This is not metal at all, its just 2000s Alt Rock.

What the heck is this doing here?

12 Screaming for Vengeance - Judas Priest
13 British Steel - Judas Priest
14 Piece of Mind - Iron Maiden

Love this one for its heavy sound. Where Eagles Dare, Revelations, Flight of Icarus, The Trooper, Die With Your Boots On...

15 Master of Reality - Black Sabbath
16 The Premonition - Firewind
17 Blizzard of Ozz - Ozzy Osbourne

Because Randy Rhoads was one of the greatest guitarists on the planet. Cut down in life far too short, just like Burton.

18 The Fall of Ideals - All That Remains

Of course. Monstrous riffs, classical solos, and catchy as the flu. One of the greatest modern metal albums made on the last 10-years.

19 Abigail - King Diamond

I have the excellent cd/dvd version of this one. Theatrical and classical.

20 Balls to the Wall - Accept

I've always been curious about the sexuality of this one. It's very Halford-esque - who is openly gay - and with classics like Balls to the Wall, London Leatherboys, Head Over Heels, Love Child, Turn Me On...hey, great album and band, either way, so don't get me wrong.

Killer German metal classic.

21 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath
22 Inhuman Rampage - Dragonforce

Played like an inhuman rampage, too.

23 Somewhere in Time - Iron Maiden

Quite a personal, introspective and progressive album from Maiden. There's a bit of fantasy thrown in there, but Wasted Years, Heaven Can Wait, Sea of Madness and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner were all quite personal songs. That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is classic Maiden. Underrated, like Piece of Mind, it's as good as anything they've written.

The last of their truly great albums.

24 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - Iron Maiden
25 Lightning to the Nations - Diamond Head
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