Wheels of Steel (Bonus Track Version)

Saxon followed up their barely produced debut with this 1980 denim-and-leather landmark of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and set a standard for blues-based, blue-collar, beer-brawling biker rock. “Street Fighting Gang” champions knocking heads together, while “Freeway Mad” and the AC/DC-esque title cut keep things bruisingly down-to-earth—they accelerate like punk rock, but the riffs and drums come straight from a butcher shop. “Machine Gun” might race fastest of all—but really, there’s no slowing down in this town.