“Am I Evil?” by Diamond Head

"Am I Evil?" is the song Diamond Head are still known for, the British band's signature track from their 1980 debut album, Lightning to the Nations. Brian Tatler, the band's guitarist, wrote it with singer Sean Harris, and it came out on Happy Face Records, a label owned by Muff Murfin, the producer behind the Old Smithy studio in Worcester.

It opens with an instrumental passage inspired by "Mars, the Bringer of War" in Gustav Holst's The Planets, then lumbers into doom-laden heavy metal that takes its cue from "Symptom of the Universe", a Black Sabbath track from 1975. The wider world caught on a few years later, when Metallica covered it on the B-side of their 1984 single "Creeping Death".

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