The
New Wave of British Heavy Metal (commonly abbreviated in
NWOBHM) was a nationwide musical movement that started in the late 1970s in the United Kingdom and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. The term was first used by journalist
Geoff Barton in the May 1979 issue of the British music newspaper
Sounds, as a way of describing the emergence of new
heavy metal bands in the late 1970s, during the period of
punk rock's decline and the dominance of
new wave music.