Replacing Dave Mustaine as Metallica’s lead guitarist in 1983, Kirk Hammett cut his teeth on Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. So it’s unsurprising that he lists Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys and Zeppelin’s ...

The riff. It's everything to metal. You can strip away pretty much any other element that has come to define the genre over the years - haunting atmospherics, scorching wails and guttural screams, ...

Heavy metal had been slowly growing in popularity for decades by the time it hit its commercial peak. The ’80s are considered mainly the heyday of heavy metal in its official definition. That being ...