@Triceratopsoil Well, I wasn't actually suggesting the Yardbirds for this site as such. Not yet. I wanted to see what people had to say about them as a band that included very early elements of metal in some of their songs, particularly the ones I mentioned above. Honestly I wasn't sure which forum was the best for such a discussion but I see I mistook Metal Music Recommendations (or perhaps as I was doing this on my iPhone I accidentally touched the wrong forum link). Whatever, you are right, now that I look at it, I put this in the wrong forum. All apologies there.

As for the Yardbirds music, they started out as a British electric blues band for sure but with Eric Clapton that meant that guitar solos would figure in prominently. By the time Jeff Beck came on board there was the addition of distortion, power chords, and more experimental solos that sound closer to metal than anything in Clapton's time. Then came Page and for a short time there were two lead guitarists, both using distortion and guitar effects. Finally Page led them through their psychedelic phase and introduced more proto-metal type solos and some heavier guitar work. Finally, the Yardbirds inspired bands like Rush, Aerosmith, Motorhead and many more hard rock and heavy metal bands of the seventies. They may not be proto-metal or even hard rock, but they definitely had an influence on the early stages of the genre's development. And of course they eventually became Led Zeppelin in a round about way.