Heavy metal. Rock music genre. It evolved ca 1970 from the British blues-rock of bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin and in their image has maintained the guitar as its dominant instrument, taking it to levels of considerable virtuosity and, inevitably, volume. The corresponding vocal style tends to exaggeration. The origin of the term 'heavy metal' has been attributed to the phrase 'heavy metal thunder' used by William Burroughs in the novel Naked Lunch and repeated by Mars Bonfire in the Steppenwolf hit of 1968, 'Born to Be Wild,' whose title summarizes the defiant hedonism of heavy metal and its fans.
Distinctions between generic 'heavy metal' and hard rock (or power rock) are vague. The terms have been used interchangeably - eg, the Juno Awards belatedly introduced a category in 1990 for hard rock/metal album (won in its first year by Rush for Presto). Heavy metal, however, is invariably the more extreme of the two. In its first 20 years, it further developed several subgenres, still more extreme though no less inexactly defined, among them 'speed metal' (in which the guitar 'riffs' typical of metal songs are played as fast as possible) and 'thrash metal' (like speed metal, but showing the 'a-melodic' influence of 'punk' rock). In the late 1980s, a trend among heavy metal bands toward 'power ballads' brought the music some broader commercial acceptance. Heavy metal's deviant reputation, however, has otherwise kept it outside the pop mainstream.
In Canada, such bands as Rush, April Wine, BTO, Haywire, Headpins, Loverboy, Max Webster, Toronto, and Triumph have been classified at one time or another as heavy metal, although in some cases the description might be more accurately applied to a particular period of their career (eg, Rush in the 1970s) or perhaps even just a single album (eg, Haywire's Nuthouse) or song. Canada's 'heavier' metal acts have not enjoyed the same prominence. Domestic sales of more than 100,000 for heavy metal albums are rare, but include Helix's Walking the Razor's Edge in 1984 and Lee Aaron's Bodyrock in 1989 (by which time the former 'Metal Queen' had in fact moved to a hard rock style).
Early Canadian bands in the power rock, hard rock or heavy metal style included Rush, Thundermug (London, Ont), and Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush (Montreal) in the early 1970s, followed by Anvil, Goddo, and Moxy in Toronto late in the decade. Moxy made several LPs for Polydor, while Goddo, led by the singer and bass guitarist Greg Godovitz, recorded for Polydor and Attic. Anvil's LPs 1981-3 for Attic, Hard 'n' Heavy, Metal on Metal, and Forged in Fire, were among the first from a Canadian band to use 'metal' terminology. Fronted by the singer and guitarist 'Lips' (Steve Kudlow), Anvil has found its greatest popularity outside of Canada, as have several of the heavy metal bands that followed in the 1980s, among them Sword, Killer Dwarfs, Voivod, and Annihilator, all of which toured in Europe and/or the USA, both on their own and as opening acts for the leading international bands of the day.
Sword, formed in 1981 in St-Bruno, Que, had the LPs Metalized and Sweet Dreams issued by Aquarius in 1986 and 1988 respectively, documenting a classic heavy metal style. Killer Dwarfs, formed ca 1981 in Toronto, have shown a flair for melody and humor unusual in hard rock/heavy metal on such albums 1986-90 as Stand Tall (Maze) and Big Deal and Dirty Weapons (Epic). The 'cyber-punk' Voivod, formed in 1982 in Jonquière, Que, reached cult status internationally by the end of the decade on the basis of the science-fiction orientation of its five albums 1984-9: War and Pain (for Metal Blade), RRRoar!, Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss (Noise), Nothingface (Mechanic), and Angel Rat (MCA). Annihilator, a speed metal band established in Vancouver by the guitarist Jeff Waters in 1987, had Alice in Hell and Never Neverland issued by Roadracer Records in 1989 and 1990 respectively to international sales exceeding 350,000.
In Stairway to Hell (New York 1990), a highly idiosyncratic survey of the heavy metal discography, the US critic Chuck Eddy cited recordings by Bryan Adams, BTO, Goddo, Rush, Steppenwolf, Voivod, and Neil Young among 'the 500 best heavy metal albums in the universe'. Eddy ranked Young's Rust Never Sleeps eighth, followed by Voivod's Killing Technology (78) and Adams' Reckless (81), establishing heavy metal as much as a creative attitude as a strictly-defined musical style.
Other popular Canadian bands at the hard rock end of the heavy metal spectrum during the 1980s included Coney Hatch (Toronto), Kick Axe (Vancouver), and Brighton Rock (Hamilton, Ont), whose albums Coney Hatch (1982), Vices (1984) and Take a Deep Breath (1989) respectively, each sold more than 50,000 copies domestically. The Montreal singer and guitarist Aldo Nova, whose debut LP Aldo Nova (1982) sold more than 200,000 copies in Canada and included the international rock hit 'Fantasy,' returned in 1991 after a recording hiatus with the hard rock album Blood on the Bricks. Newer acts emerging with major-label recordings in the early 1990s included the Los Angeles-based Tim Karr, Vancouver's Paul Laine and Chrissy Steele, and Toronto's Brat Farrar, Big House, Harem Scarem, Sacrifice, and Slik Toxik. Canadian thrash bands in this period, be they of punk or metal derivation, included Disaster Area (Halifax, then Toronto), Dyoxen (London, Ont), NoMeansNo (Victoria, BC), and Overthrow (Toronto).
Several Canadian musicians have been heard in British or US hard rock/heavy metal groups. The drummer Corky Laing (b Montreal 26 Jan 1948) was a member 1969-74 of the prototypical US band Mountain. The guitarist Pat Travers (b Toronto 12 Apr 1954) has had a long, British-based career in hard rock, recording several albums in the 1970s and early 1980s for Polydor. The Bahamas-born singer Sebastian Bach (b Bierk), who spent part of his youth in Peterborough, Ont, and began his career in Toronto, became a member of the US band Skid Row in 1987. Daniel MacMaster, of Barrie, Ont, began singing with the British band Bonham in 1989. That same year the guitarist Pete Freezin, originally of Saskatoon, joined the touring band of US singer Alice Cooper, who in the mid-1970s had employed the Toronto musicians Whitey Glann and Prakash John.
Several publications have documented the activities of Canadian bands, most notably the monthly M.E.A.T. ('Metal events around Toronto'), introduced in 1989 by Drew Masters. Distributed free of charge through record stores, it had a circulation of 35,000 by 1991.
