According to Metallum it is Deep Purple.

Just because they formed a year earlier? Don't be ridiculous. Deep Purple's most metal albums came significantly later than Black Sabbath's debut.

I guess I should have gone into more detail, I honestly think that the Kinks made the first heavy metal song, and that Blue Cheer was the first metal band.

The title track still really isn't a metal song and the debut is not a metal album.

Where are the metal riffs? That's the heart of metal and the tritone one alone doesn't account for it.

I hate this question. Defining the first metal band is like defining the first rock n' roll song, it's all largely problematic. Part of this is that everyone has their own opinion on it, and part of it being that music doesn't just pop into existence but gradually evolves over time. Defining the very point it stopped being blues or rock n' roll or whatever and started being metal is almost unanswerable, and why does it really matter? What's more important is who was YOUR first metal band.

With the exception of a couple hugely underground (and largely unheard) compositions that came out in the late 1960's.

Would you mind posting a few of those, if there's any available on youtube or whatever? I have a huge interest in that kind of thing (as do 90% of the people on this board, I've noticed).

No. The tritone is used pretty sparingly (in comparison to blues and minor riffs) throughout the classic doom bands. I mean, hell, Sabbath never really featured it so prominently after that one example. Hardly what one could call a template if it's rarely followed.

History will say (and already has basically said) Black Sabbath, so what you all think is irrelevant

Could've used Saint Vitus's "H.A.A.G." to back yourself up, but even that that's one of a very limited number of times that they used it in comparison to not using it.

Do you even know what timbre and riffing style are? To say the timbre and riffing style of that song is representative of a style of music is a farce. Not all doom is slow, not all is comprised of an arpeggiated melody, not all is wah inflected, not all is mostly treble based tone...

The Wizard may have that one riff (again!) (I'd argue it's a hard rock riff [the fills, phrasing, and little notes popping up here and there are even more indication]), but even so, claiming the debut is the first metal album is inane. Master of Reality is the starting point for their metal work and even that is interrupted by interludes.

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exYgyajkjsI

Ton of excellent bands in that vid.

Where are the metal riffs? That's the heart of metal and the tritone one alone doesn't account for it.

So what about the drone-doom songs that have no riffs whatsoever?

Master of Reality is the starting point for their metal work and even that is interrupted by interludes.

History(according to the mainstream) will also say that Slipknot was the greatest metal band of our generation. Do you believe them?

No, it wont. Slipknot was pretty obviously a fad and will be forgotten in another 5 years at most.

No, it wont. Slipknot was pretty obviously a fad and will be forgotten in another 5 years at most.