1975 Metal & Hard Rock Albums

High Voltage (Australian) captures AC/DC at a point where the later image is not yet fully fixed.

T.N.T.

Toys in the Attic joins Aerosmith’s blues-rooted roughness to sharper riffs and more immediate melodies.

Sabotage keeps Black Sabbath’s thick, heavy riffs at the center while widening the sound through sudden shifts, keyboards and stacked voices.

Come Taste the Band finds Deep Purple welcoming Tommy Bolin in place of Ritchie Blackmore and mixing more funk, soul and blues feeling into its established heavy-rock fou

Dreamboat Annie is Heart’s debut, joining the softness of acoustic guitar, hard-rock force and beautiful vocal harmony.

Journey is the band’s debut from before it moved toward the large-chorus style of its later years.

Dressed to Kill keeps KISS’s early raw energy while sharpening it into more compact, memorable songs.

Physical Graffiti lets Led Zeppelin move freely through heavy riffs, blues, funk and acoustic shadow across a double album.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow is the debut in which Ritchie Blackmore, newly away from Deep Purple, met Ronnie James Dio’s rich voice and gave hard rock a mythic color.

Caress of Steel takes Rush further away from blues-based hard rock and puts long structures and fantasy-driven storytelling at the front.

Fly by Night finds Rush gaining a new language through the arrival of Neil Peart.

In Trance moves Scorpions away from the longer progressive turns of its earliest work and toward tighter, sharper hard rock.

Fighting finds Thin Lizzy making a harder, more identifiable sound around Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson’s twin guitars.