Vincebus Eruptum

Another album that stands out because of when it happened more than what it's doing. However, if you released this today and said it was a Jack White side project, no one would doubt you.

Among albums recorded underwater, this one is the best.

I'd heard of Blue Cheer but never heard them... can see why people say they beat Black Sabbath to making the first heavy metal album, but while they might have a similar sound to early sabbath they sure as shit don't have the songwriting. The first two songs are covers and the rest seems to be kinda droney, sludgey jam tracks - a 32min album that felt like it dragged on. My guess is they're all one-take jobbies, probably recorded live. Pretty much everything after the cover songs felt like a "big ending" that just kept going and going. 2/5.

Kind of the missing link between Cream and Black Sabbath. Raw recording, love the imperfections. Favorite tracks: "Summertime Blues", "Rock Me Baby"

“We have Jimi Hendrix at home”

As pitchfork says, Blue Cheer are "musicians who... live not to perfect their technique, but to simply rock.". Well, that sounds GREAT to me. The playing is rough as guts and pretty over the top, especially the lead playing. Lots of bends and trills, feedback, barely in tune. The slow, heavy, vaguely blues based playing is a prototype for metal in general and stoner rock in particular. This is the shit. This sounds like they set up in a room, chucked a few mics in randomly and just started jamming it out. It's loud, noisy and obnoxious. And that's what I like!

Found this truly pointless. If this is the birth of Heavy Metal, I guess metal is hammy blues rock covers drenched in muddy guitar pedal effects.

These guys sure do sound like Hendrix and The Who did at that time. Summertime Blues is a dead ringer for The Who's live version. Let me guess, these guys saw Hendrix and The Who at the Monterey Pop festival (down the road from where they live), started to play like them and rushed an album out in time for the new wave of heavy metal? I like late 60s heavy metal. This is where it all started and it was original and exciting back then. I'm just not sure how much of the wave can be attributed to influence from these guys. They deserve a few points for how fleet footed they were jumping on the bandwagon.

Oh Lord, I got to raise a fuss, Lord I got to raise a holler About a playin' proto heavy metal just to try to earn a dollar Oh Lord, I tried to destroy my amps, your ears I did abuse Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do Lord, there ain't no cure for the early hard rock heavy ear-splittin' blues

The riffs come about slowly, dreadful and hyper-distorted, built around depraved melodies. One of the Bands that really starts playing Heavy Metal. (7/10) Favourite Tracks: Doctor Please, Summertime Blues, Out of Focus

Electrifying combo of blues, hard rock, and rip-roaring riffs and guitar solos. There's some ultra impressive drum work on here too, which I wasn't expecting.

Solid album, but you can definitely tell this was their first album. Rough around the edges, but some really great ideas in there and some powerful sounds. Favorite Tracks: “Summertime Blues,” “Doctor Please,” and “Parchment Farm”

Vincebus Eruptum is promising but disappointing at the same time, it's late 60s rock moving towards metal and has good ideas but not great execution, and given Hendrix was doing some of this stuff lightyears better before this came along, it doesn't really stand up to being included in a must-listen list. High 2, it's too rough to deserve another listen and not as influential as people think it was/is.

It's a very nice surprise to discover these pre-heavy metal bands that I did not know about before. An excellent album.

Proto-metal. Heavy Acid Rock. I have a weakness for 60's era fuzzy guitar and I think I just OD'd. They are obviously channeling Cream and trying to take it to the next level. The results are mixed at best. This is a studio album that sounds live. I read someone's comment that said it is the missing link between Cream and Black Sabbath and I kind of agree although its not nearly as accomplished as either. It sounds like the generic scene setting music being played in the background of a house of ne'er do well hippie druggies in a 60's police drama. The album is short but feels long, which is never a good sign. Some tunes, in excessive effort to make them seem epic, go on way too long. Others seem like they are not fleshed out ideas that start and end with no real development. However, for me, they completely hit the mark with their cover of Summertime Blues. Its one of the 1st songs I remember listening to over and over on my own albeit the Eddie Cochran version. Later on I loved The Who's version. But when I heard this around 10 years old, I think my head exploded; I loved it. On the strength of that song, and the inarguable fact that this album is a priceless museum piece, I give it a 3.

This is nice and heavy like Psychadelic proto-Fuzz. Definitely ahead of its time—you see the bridge from Cream to Black Sabbath. The drummer sounds does a great Ginger Baker impression. It’s Jammy, heavily distorted and short. Sometimes the jamminess comes off as repetitive and a little rough/unrehearsed. Pretty good. Would buy on Vinyl. B. 3.

Third song should have been titled “Doctor Please … make this song stop”. I know it was early metal, but man these guys were clearly not good song writers. Summertime Blues cover is a classic though.

Proto whatever your preferred genre of noise mess is. These guys make filthy, sludgy, gloopy rock--and all while looking like Hanson! Now if only they had a little of the blonde brothers' gumminess, this would actually be as crazy as they're trying to sound.

Don’t you ever just want to throw caution to the wind, have fun and make some goddamn noise? Apparently not, judging by the reviews here. It’s time to lighten up, kids… Bow down unto the church of acid rock.

As one half of UK cover band Houmous & Chutney, I know a thing or two about taking a great song and doing a terrible cover and almost ruining it. 3.7

J'ai adoré le moment où le chanteur casse sa guitare et l'enflamme sur scène devant un public éberlué.

7/10. this album is pretty heavy n stuff but it doesnt totally click with me. i think just because of the audio quality? idk if its just the mono mix that i got but it sounds even fuzzier and harder to make out than a lot of 60s stuff already does. plus the songs themselves arent amazing imo, tend to go on for a while. by a bit before halfway thru it just felt like a ton of fuzzy psychedelic noise goin in one ear and out the other. might just be bc i have trouble focusing on stuff though.

I listened to this in the shower. Pretty boring shower music.

Direct and templated bluesy psychedelic rock from the '60s of which there is much too much on this list. Nothing distinguished here – not the vocals and the jamming is replacement level for the era. Maybe was influential the, but today is merely not bad and sorta boring.

Not for me ... at the time I could see it as breaking new ground, maybe. From the current paradigm, it feels derivative of all influences that are contributing to the sound, its a half-formed thought of what music should be. I imagine I hate people that point to this album as life changing.

Y'know, I spend a lot of time gassing up Black Sabbath's debut album as the start of heavy metal. The legendary record birthed straight from the fires of Hell to deliver crashing drums and crunching riffs unto the world... That sort of thing, y'know. I mean, heck, that record excited me so much, I spent half of my 1.5k review on prose adapating the first song 'coz I felt that was the only way to really get across how I felt about it. Whether or not that was a waste of space is up to you, but you can't say it didn't inspire me. For much as I pile hype on Black Sabbath, though, I think it's also worth taking some time to pay respects to what brought us to it and heavy metal in the first place: proto-metal! The loud-ass music laying down the path metal would soon tread upon. Of course you've got your classics in this field, like "Helter Skelter" and "Communication Breakdown" whatnot, but of course, today we're focusing on one of the progenitors lesser-known to the public at large, Blue Cheer and VINCEBUS ERUPTUM. And let's cut straight to it: this shit fuckin' rules. It's a half-hour straight of some of the loudest and most distortion-filled psych blues you'll hear this side of Jimi Hendrix. Seriously — I can just imagine going to one of their live shows and coming out with hearing damage, because, like, **wow**. There's only six songs on here, but they're beyond electrifying. The drums are blasting away, the guitar's wildin' out, the singer's makin' a racket... It's so raw and simple, and it's so good. It's like, I can understand people's problem with this album, no doubt. It can be a little, y'know, much if you're just not used to this kind of stuff. It's not even the heaviest thing out there, nor is it even really metal... But **by gawd**, it's balls to the wall with its volume and distortion. Not even Sabbath's first album was this aggressively distorted and loud. It's **so fuckin' GOOD**, though! I realize I'm biased 'coz I'm a metal girlie, but it is just flat-out incredible to hear proto-metal that's just so... Off the rails, really. Leaning **so far** into Hendrix's heavy psych freak-outs, without even a "The Wind Cries Mary" sitting around as a pace changer. It's full force and nonstop, and, yeah, I can imagine getting sick of this if I heard it too much. But, hey, you take in too much of anything in one sitting you get sick, right? And on this spin around, absolutely, I have nothing but nice things to say about this album. Really, the only thing I wanna knock it for is some of that classic "60's mixing" nonsense on the last song. I'm sure I woulda enjoyed that "Moby Dick"-style drum assault a bit more if it wasn't confined **entirely** to my right ear, y'know? Give the left one some, too. In the grand scheme of this album, though, it's a minor complaint. And as much as I can understand the 2.8 average this thing has, on the whole, it strikes me a bit like that guy from BACK TO THE FUTURE who says Marty's band is "too darn loud." Me: I say crank it up higher! Make a dog explode if he sits on your shit! It's, jus'— ah, it's beautiful. All of my love, all of my respect. Horns all the way fuckin' way up. In two words: hell yeah.

she vince on my bus til i eruptum

This is absolutely rockin

If Black Sabbath's debut is the birth of metal, then this album is it's conception. So how does it sound? Well, it sounds like blues. But not like blues but like... █▄▄ █░░ █░█ █▀▀ █▀ █▄█ █▄▄ █▄█ ██▄ ▄█ Ridiculously heavy and psychedelic, it's not that pleasant as a listen. Not to mention the vocals, which felt like they were mere decorations to the gigantic sound. Yet for some reason, it rocked me hard. And I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Sounded like controlled chaos

This is interesting, it's got some cool moments, proto metal type stuff, and I quite like it - it's got a bit more edge than a lot of stuff that was floating around at the time. That said, there's plenty from that era that did this better, it's too rough and the production is painful in places. Think it deserves a 3, I enjoyed it, but it's a low one.

Interesting artefact, and to hear the roots of metal, but the record itself is heaving going

Some cool parts, but mostly meh. Standout song: Second time around

Meh

There seems to be an unlimited supply of these late 60s US psychedelic,/garage/hard Rock Bands that are new to me - but none have grabbed me. Raucous and raw - possibly influential but better stuff existed shortly before and after this.

Influential? Sure. Very early heavy metal type of music. Does it make for a fun listen? Meh. Only in some parts.

I can't really see it... people saying it sounds like Black Sabbath but it's more like Cream or something and I just don't find it too interesting. 4/10

So I'm not saying that Jazzy Jo and the Bonheur Bros is a better band than Blue Cheer but I do think that at our last performance if we had have played this album as recorded, the audience would have cleared out almost immediately. The decent covers don't come close to making up for the mindless fiddling of the rest of the album.

A little too raw recording production and poor songwriting put a serious dent into the optimism I had for hearing this album for the first time. Nope, not the proto metal album I was led to believe it was. Doesn't match the hype, and not an all time album that needs to be heard over other great 60s albums that were not included on the list to make room for this one.

There are just others that do the sound much better than they do.

The obsession with tracing genres back to some singular origin - a holy moment of conception, an immaculate birth - leads to a bunch of mediocre but early albums having a load bearing weight put on them they really can't sustain. Take away the 'first heavy metal' tag and your left with a classic San Francisco psych blues album that's a bit wilder, louder, and fuzzier than its peers, fun stuff that sounds basically like shit. The vocals are a weak Pigpen, the guitar a pale Hendrix, the bass and imitation Entwistle, and the drums a pretty decent Bonham. Sounds like a very fun band to be in though, tripping your ass off and making a louder noise than anything a boomer had ever heard before. If not a direct inspiration for, a manifestation of the same spirit than has animate a billion basement jam sessions.

Oh the days of driving hard rock with angry white-man vocals. This has everything. The requisite culturally appropriated blues track, the near 8-minute guitar riff overloaded love song, and echoes of the Stones and Hendrix (wait, who came first?). Hold my beer and pass the hookah, it is 1968.

Cochran x Hendrix = a heavy blues-rock soup! Nothing stands out until the final track 'Second Time Around' which was cool. Not cool enough for me to ever play this again though!

Cool to listen to some early heavy metal but I can’t see myself coming back to this.

yuck wasnt remastered so it sounds tinny and terrible

Saved Prior: None Saved Off Rip: None Cutting Edge: Rock Me Baby, Out of Focus Overall Notes: Yeah this ain't it chief. Not as god awful as it was as background music the first time listening to it but definitely not my thing.

This was a hard miss for me. Really just sounds like someone grabbed some people in a room and told them to play whatever they wanted without considering what the others played. Don't ask me about lyrics because I couldn't tell what was lyrics versus the guitar.

“Top 1000 albums ever” and they pull This out 😭

This list is amazing for discovering albums that one would never have listened to without it, potentially uncovering albums to add to the personal favourites list. But it's also great for realising that there's music out there that you don't just dislike, but actively hate. This is one such album.

Meh

Felt like it dragged on, even for such a short album. Typically a fan of heavy metal but didn't really enjoy this, only redeemable song was Out of Focus.

It’s amazing to to think this came out seven months after Sgt Peppers and almost two years before Black Sabbath’s debut and a year before Led Zeppelin’s debut album. This is a must listen just for that - a relatively obscure band that gets easily forgotten made something that would still vital in an underground club show today.

Crucial guitar

Otro disco y banda fundamentales. Pioneros de un sonido más pesado que dio origen al Heavy, Punk etc. No es el estilo que más me gusta, pero siguen sonando potentes hoy en día.

10/09/2025 Never heard of these guys before, probably won't again, but i enjoyed the album, was a nice little surprise on my burfday. Spotify listeners: 74.9k

I had never heard of this band before, so it was interesting to discover their heavy style. I wasn't sure that I liked it at first, but after a couple of playthroughs, I've decided that while they are no Black Sabbath, their music moves me enough to nudge into five-star territory.

felt like eating a good batch of raw carrots!

For how raw and industrial the production and instrumentation is in this album the song still have such a groove This feels like the best concert anyone has ever seen in the bare basement of a factory This maybe be a considerable work of genius I worry about its replay-ability but right now it works

One of the first heavy metal albums. Wow does this kick ass. The guitar work is insane and I love the tone of these drums, and the drummer's fun fills. "Summertime Blues" is their big hit but the rest of these tracks well enough hold their own, "Doctor Please" being a total banger. Only 6 songs and 30 minutes but still world changing. Fitting I get a proto heavy metal album the day The Prince of Darkness passed. I had already gotten the other Sabbath albums earlier

🤩

На момент появи цього альбому вже існувало таке явище, як гаражний рок, що привносило в музику хаос та відчуття «бурхливого життя». Проте на своєму дебютному альбомі Blue Cheer, які були названі на честь сорту ЛСД, зробили настільки щільний, гулкий та гучний звук, якого ще до них не робив ніхто. На той час таке низьке звучання було в буквальному сенсі нищівним, адже ходять чутки, що під час першої спроби запису цього альбому вони «спалили» пульт звукорежисера. Звісно, це швидше за все красива легенда, але легенди не народжуються на пустому місці. Саме з цього гурту починає відлік такий жанр, як Heavy Psych, з якого потім виросте Heavy Metal. Це була суміш блюз-року та психоделічного року з якоюсь «панківською» енергетикою та гіпнотичними імпровізованими соло. Звісно, це не найтехнічніший блюз, який ви можете знайти, проте один з найбільш експериментальних на той час. З цього альбому черпатимуть натхнення такі легенди, як Led Zeppelin та The Stooges, та ще безліч гуртів 70-х. Але самі Blue Cheer, на жаль, більше ніколи не повторять такого успіху, хоч і випустять потім ще два доволі гарних альбоми. Але якщо ви подумали, що зараз це вже все звучить архаїчно та не захопить вашу увагу - ви глибоко помиляєтесь. Адже навіть зараз, не зважаючи на те, що ми маємо набагато важчу музику, це все ще звучить як дуже цікавий, атмосферний та душевний, психоделічний блюз-рок, що розйобує тебе своїм брудним, але до біса щирим звучанням. Він став класикою в момент виходу, я вважав його шедевром, коли почув уперше, та й вважаю таким досі. Хай живе рок-н-рол!

Pretty amazing given the time period. Could be right at home in many ages of music. Definitely a progenitor of some of my favorite stuff.

Bonus point for making me think about The Walkingseeds track Blue Cheer from their debut album Skulkfuck

Mostly recognized for being proto metal, yet kicks ass by itself as a blues record. Solid 5 Stars.

Maybe not the start of Metal, but it has to be the start of stoner rock. That sludgy guitar fuzz is so money. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I fuck with this heavy. 9/10

These dudes fucking rock. I don't know how I've never heard of them. That 'Summertime Blues' is heavy AF. Love this psychedelic/metal combination.

Holy power trio Batman.

Almost metal, liked it a lot.

Zajebiste. Dobry klimat początków heavy metalu, nawet jeśli o tym nie wiedzieli. 5/5

Actually loved this. There was something dark about it, enjoyed throughout

I do love a power trio.

What an amazing album, straight out of the gritty demonic psychedelic 60s. The self penned songs are really great and the covers are the hardest takes of said songs at the time. Its not really heavy metal but it's Cream or Jefferson Airplane turned to 11.

Ich kenne "Blue Cheer" gar nicht, aber nach dem ersten Anhören gefällt mir das Bild, die Band ist das Bindeglied vom Blues zu Heavy Metal. Auch dass sie der Funken für Black Sabbath seien. Alles nachvollziehbar. Harter Blues, lange Solis, anspruchsvolle Arrangements, was ist mit da entgangen.

Like early Sabbath. Loved it.

That was awesome - definitely adding it to my collection. I can't believe I've never heard of them! Raw and hard.

9/10 - pretty insane for 1968, gotta give a lot of respect to this one :)

I needed this today. "Vincebus Eruptum" is the debut album by American rock band Blue Cheer. Hard rock, pyschedelic rock, acid rock and heavy metal are the assigned genres and they all fit but this album is known as and considered one of the first heavy metal albums. The band was a trio consisting of Dickie Pearson (vocals, bass), Leigh Stephens (guitar) and Paul Whaley (drums). The album did well commercially hitting #11 in the US and was well received by the critics. The album opens with a cover of Eddie Cochran's " Summertime Blues." This is fast and heavy. Rolling drums and bass. The guitar explodes and goes in all directions. The song gets faster. This is chaotic, messy and wonderful. Lead singer Pearson mentioned the result had something to with large amounts of LSD. They do another cover in B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby." It's slower, more bluesy. Two large extended guitar solos by Leigh Stephens. There are four words to describe "Doctor Please:" lo-fi, fuzzy, hazy and heavy. Another chaotic monster guitar jam. It's a song about whether Person should take drugs; no need to think about what direction he took. In "Out of Focus," you really start to see the influence of Jimi Hendrix in Stephens' guitar sound. The song has got a groove and is funky. There's also some high level screaming by Pearson. Pounding drums, a thumping bass and driving guitar begin the closer "Second Time Around." Stephens guitar is oscillating between melodic and random, extended solos. Whaley gives a "Moby Dick-esque" drum solo. There's a long silence which goes into guitar solo and the song ends in two-minutes of total chaos. Amen my friends. This album is just fantastic. The band sounds like a punk-i-fied, more reckless version of Led Zeppelin. The music is energetic, fuzzy, garage, lo-fi, heavy, chaotic and totally rockin.' At times the band goes off in random directions and I don't even know if they know where they're going, what the other musicians are doing or if they even care. Leigh Stephens' guitar playing is just plain awesome taking off in each song...very unique. This is an album that every person that likes hard rock needs to listen to.

Sounds much later than it was. Class heavy blues.

cool

Absolutely fantastic album. Only knew the first track, never heard any of the other songs before. I found nothing about this that would discourage me from listening to more. 5 stars easy peasy.

This felt like early metal, and I loved it.

This is what I'm here for! I had never heard or heard of these guys or this album, and its a great album. Its very "of its time" but its got a lot of future-looking sound in it as well. 5/5

Classic 70s rock

Kicks ass.

Kicks ass. Cant believe I’ve never heard this album.

There are bands today still trying to recreate the sound and intensity of this record. You can hear the DAN of so many hard rock and metal genres forming in the incredibly brief run time of this album. Loved it. Gnarly.

Captures rock of its era

Even the causal metal fan is familiar with this band and the cover of Summer Time Blues, though Parchment Farm is the true gem. Also one of the few proto metal bands that was not from England. The good is of course the music, big loud fuzzy guitars, this is the birth of Doom/Stoner metal for sure. My biggest problem is some of the vocals especially on Doctor Please. It's a 4 star album but I'm given 5 given how influential it is on music that I love so much.

I have heard of Blue Cheer before. I had always read they were "proto" heavy metal. And yeah, that's exactly what this is, similar to Deep Purple. And I love it. It's raw and low production, but that's cool with me. There's quite a bit of jammin' too. I love it.

Zalig hoe je hoort op welke manier deze muziek invloed heeft gehad op latere genres! Weer iets onbekend die me verraste

What a great record! Never heard it but it’s amazing!

Pioneers.

Epic album. Amazing sound by a super talented band

This rules

excellent hidden gem, hadn't heard about them before, but enjoyed the proto-heavy metal sound.

Whoa. Hard to find to listen to but it was worth the hunt - oh the fuzz and the fuzz - the drums pounding throughout and the voices tearing through this 30 min powerhouse of an album. I’m sold on blue cheer - kind of in the world of a more bluesy stooges and a rougher hendrix experience.

Loved it! An early forerunner of lots of stuff I like, and one of the first power trios. Every song was great, but their version of summertime blues was greatest for me. Really intrigued to hear more of their stuff.

It is uncanny how much the White Stripes sound like these guys. Never heard of them before but this album is fire.

Loved the album as a whole. Exactly what it needed to be. Second half of the last track was a little much for me but still giving it a 5.

Nice heavy metal or hard rock