The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) was a heavy metal movement that started in the late 1970s in Britain and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. After Sounds editor Alan Lewis coined the term journalist Geoff Barton first used it in the May 1979 issue of Sounds magazine as a way of describing a second wave of heavy metal bands that emerged in the late 1970s during the period of punk rock’s decline and the dominance of new wave music.
