You may well find this conclusion to be completely stupid and I do admit that I havent investigated this to an appreciable extent. I therefore encourage you do put me right if you find anything wrong with what I will say..

I Think theres something pretty metal about the west midlands area of England.

First off, we've got Birmigham's Black Sabbath - metal creators to us

secondly, we have the legendary Judas Priest, also from Birmingham

thridly death metal's Benediction are from Birmingham

Fourthly, (and admittdley more to do with Grindcore) we have Naplam Death and Annal Nathrakh). The former band are hailed as having been a major contributer to the formation of grindcore and the latter band are just a suberb band.

Number Five, the suberb Bolt Thrower hail form nearby Coventery as do the prominent Cathedral.

Sixthly, we have the christian thrash metal band seventh angel - this band are known for helping England along a bit with very good thrash in a time when the thrash metal bands were mainly of America and Germany - the UK wasn't leading the pack for thrash.

As i said before, this is light years away from conclusive proof of my conclusion, so I welcome replies that correct me. I mean most of you were interpret metal credentials on a geographic area of the diversity of metal within that. For example, my short investigation only shows how the west midlands is known for traditional, doom and death metal and grindcore, so i could be wrong.

i eagerly await your replies and opinions

also Diamond Head were from Birmingham!
he he I remember the day I visited Birmingham for the Black Sabbath reunion in 1997 !!! will never forget!!!

From memories of '68 when the wizard shook the world
Metal came from foundries where the Midlands sound unfurled
The bullring was a lonely place of concrete towers and steel
The coal mines and the industries were all I had to feel

Something inside took hold of me, I really didn�t know
But overtime it came to be, I knew which way to go
I drove around in search of what would make this all come true
From jazz and electricity and good old southern blues

Hell! We'�re born to raise some hell!
Hell! We�'re gonna raise some hell!

~


Forged in the black country
Under blood red skies
We all had our dream to realise

Driving in that transit
Down to holy Joe's
Used to lose our head
While metal flowed

Nothing held us back or dared to try
Something in our blood
Won't let us die

We built our world of metal
Watched it grow
Fuelled the fury solid to the bone

Gotta deal with the devil
'cause you know that it's real
Done a deal with the devil
From a heart made of steel

I saw an interview somewhere with Halford where he stated that he walked past steel mills everyday going to school, and the sound of the pounding metal influenced him later in his music career. Heavy metal, indeed!

Anaal Nathrakh aren't a grindcore band.

i'm sorry i guess i wasnt very clear but anaal nathrakh apparently fuse black metal with grindcore

by the way does anyone disagree with me and the whole west midlands thing

Magnum is from Birmingham.

Bolt Thrower are from Coventry, which is just a Bolt's throw away from Birmingham.

Robbie Williams is from Stoke-on-Trent. Can't get much more metal than that.

No, seriously, Anaal Nathrakh would have been my contribution to this thread too, truly excellent stuff.