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10 Early Metal Albums Every Metal Fan Needs to Understand the Secret Hidden in It – Judas Priest Explained
By R.J. Graves
The story begins, as many metal legends do, not in fire, but in silence. In dusty basements, dimly lit vinyl shops, and long-forgotten back alleys of Birmingham and beyond, where riffs grew like weeds between concrete cracks. Among the chaos, there exists a legend. A secret. A thread. One that ties together ten early metal albums in a way no casual fan could ever notice. Judas Priest hinted at it. Others concealed it in plain sight.
What if these records weren’t just musical milestones, but cryptic messages—encoded warnings and prophecies wrapped in distortion and rebellion?
We set out to decode the top 10 early metal albums that, together, form the cipher. This is not just a list. This is the map.
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1. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)
The beginning of everything. But listen carefully—beneath the thunderstorm and the tolling bell of the opening track lies an occult invocation. Sabbath didn’t just create metal; they opened the gate. Legend tells of a forbidden grimoire found by bassist Geezer Butler, a book that inspired the band’s name, tone, and lyrics. The first note of the tritone riff isn’t just sound—it’s a key. The gate creaked open in 1970. And something walked through.
Cipher Clue: The bell tolls exactly 13 times in a hidden demo version. The 13th bell is backward-masked—barely audible but essential.
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2. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
While not a “metal” album by today’s standards, its inclusion is critical. Page’s obsession with Aleister Crowley and the occult bleeds through “Stairway to Heaven.” There’s an esoteric sequence of chords in the solo section that, when mirrored and slowed down, eerily resembles the riff from “The Ripper” by Judas Priest. Coincidence? Or an aural echo through time?
Cipher Clue: The Hermit on the cover holds more than a lantern—his staff points to the mountain of secrets in the vinyl’s inner groove.
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3. Deep Purple – Machine Head (1972)
Born from fire—literally. The casino burning during the “Smoke on the Water” recording isn’t just an anecdote; it’s symbolic. Fire as purification. Baptism. Every song on Machine Head is a trial, a forging of soul and steel. Ian Gillan’s scream in “Highway Star” allegedly triggered a resonance effect in ancient stone circles, according to a now-banned BBC Radio special aired in 1973.
Cipher Clue: Play “Space Truckin’” backward. You’ll hear a coded phrase: “The metal chariot rides east.”
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4. Blue Öyster Cult – Secret Treaties (1974)
They knew. Secret Treaties is no mere album—it’s a Rosetta Stone of the movement. Lyrics mention jet pilots and cryptic pacts; the booklet art hides three sigils linked to Sumerian sky gods. The track “Subhuman” allegedly contains a harmonic pattern used in ancient rituals to summon “hidden intelligences.”
Cipher Clue: The band’s name, acronymized as BÖC, hides a tetrahedral cipher that directly aligns with the compass directions mentioned in Priest’s Sin After Sin.
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5. Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny (1976)
Here it is. The axis. The moment metal matured into something ceremonial. Sad Wings isn’t just an album—it’s a prophecy. Rob Halford, with his vocal precision and mythic presence, was more than a singer—he was a herald. The angel on the cover isn’t falling—it’s transforming. The lyrics in “Victim of Changes” may reference not heartbreak, but transmutation—the spiritual alchemy of pain into power.
Cipher Clue: The song “Dreamer Deceiver” is structured in Fibonacci intervals. The solo ascends into a perfect mathematical spiral.
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6. Rainbow – Rising (1976)
Ronnie James Dio brought the lore. Rainbows, wizards, and stargazers—it was dismissed as fantasy. But ancient scrolls speak of the “Watcher from the East,” a celestial being who would speak in riddles and thunder. Dio’s vocals on “Stargazer” allegedly mirror the frequency modulation of a mysterious shortwave transmission caught in 1977 known only as “Signal 82.”
Cipher Clue: The drum pattern in “A Light in the Black” is a Morse-coded message: “Not all that rises, descends.”
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7. Scorpions – In Trance (1975)
Less heavy, more hypnotic—yet crucial. In Trance isn’t sonic aggression; it’s sonic seduction. The title track reportedly caused lucid dreams in several test subjects during an East German parapsychological study (the files of which were lost during reunification). “Life’s Like a River” alludes to the secret river Styx—the crossing between consciousness and death.
Cipher Clue: In the quiet segment of “Living and Dying,” a spectral voice whispers: “Die to awaken.”
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8. AC/DC – Let There Be Rock (1977)
The gospel chapter. Here, Bon Scott acts as a preacher, screaming gospel truths in gritty blues tongues. The title track literally retells Genesis from the Book of Rock, but in doing so, it flips the order. “And it came to pass…” became “Let there be sound.” The album reorders creation, suggesting that music—not light—was the first element.
Cipher Clue: The count-in to “Overdose” matches the prime sequence of a Pythagorean musical scale tied to Greek mystery cults.
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9. Motörhead – Motörhead (1977)
The Outlaw. Lemmy’s crew were the Horsemen riding in from the apocalypse. The album is fast, raw, and violent—not only to ears but to order. Motörhead was chaos embodied. Yet chaos is needed. Lemmy reportedly refused to enter certain studios due to “bad echoes”—psychic imprints. The song “Iron Horse / Born to Lose” may be an invocation of the Destroyer archetype.
Cipher Clue: The static before “White Line Fever” reveals a pulsed binary code. When decoded, it reads: “Don’t trust the priest.”
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10. Judas Priest – Stained Class (1978)
Back to the beginning. But this time, not prophecy—revelation. The cover art—a metal face pierced by a laser—represents the final unlocking. Judas Priest completed the circle they began in Sad Wings. This is the Key Album. Lyrically dense, musically sharp, and spiritually electric. “Beyond the Realms of Death” isn’t about suicide; it’s about transcendence.
Cipher Clue: When played simultaneously with Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath” at midnight during a full moon, overlapping moments match—a metal eclipse.
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The Secret Revealed
So what’s the secret?
Across these albums, one finds recurring themes: angels and demons, dreams and awakenings, fire and transcendence, noise and order. They aren’t random. Together, they form an esoteric initiation—a rite of passage. Metal, in its earliest and purest form, wasn’t just rebellion.
It was ritual.
Judas Priest were the conductors of this rite. Their dual-lead guitars mirrored the dualities of being: light/dark, sacred/profane, metal/flesh. Halford’s shriek was the invocation; Tipton and Downing’s solos, the ascent.
The “hidden message” was never Satanic panic—it was liberation. Metal teaches transformation. Pain becomes power. Isolation becomes community. Noise becomes transcendence.
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Final Note
The next time you drop the needle on one of these albums, close your eyes. Listen beyond the riffs. There are voices in the distortion. Patterns in the chaos. Frequencies that stir something ancient and primal. The secret is there, if you’re ready.
And if you hear the whisper: “He is the ripper, and you’re his next…” Don’t be afraid.
It just means you’re listening correctly.
