1973 was a year of mixed blessings and contradictory tidings for heavy metal, as it continued to evolve and expand beyond its initial seeding, some three years earlier.

On the one hand, well-established titans like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple were peaking (their as-yet-unforeseen decline looming even then), while secondary lights like Uriah Heep, Budgie and Bloodrock were finding it hard to fulfill the dreams of stardom that had seemed so inevitable, almost preordained, in ‘71 and ‘72.

But, on the other hand, the astonishing volume of heavy groups still emerging in such far-flung places as Australia (Buffalo), Scandinavia (Titanic) and Indonesia (A.K.A.), suggested that metal, as a whole, was still on the rise, though, fact is, it would actually reached its maximum global expansion in the latter 1980s.

Point being that the style was about to endure some commercial and creative challenges, leading to wholesale contraction during the second half of the ‘70s, but, for now, there was no reason for worrying, as this list of 1973’s Best Heavy Metal Songs You Didn’t Know About will show.

Scroll through the gallery below and follow this list on Spotify.

'70s Metal: Songs You Didn't Know About - Playlist

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