In my article “Compound AABA Form and Style Distinction in Heavy Metal,” which was just published in Music Theory Online 27.1, I make the argument that metal music has a normative, default song form, that is used in the overwhelming majority of songs in the genre’s historical core styles.
This form is called “compound AABA.” “Compound” means that each A has several sections, usually including Verse and Chorus. After two As (or two Verse-Chorus cycles, if you want to think about it that way), there is usually a contrasting “B” section, which in metal and hard rock often has a guitar solo.
While many people (see the article) argue that what separates metal from pop music is that metal doesn’t have any formulaic conventions, that simply isn’t true. That isn’t to say that metal bands aren’t highly creative with their song forms; but many of them do creative things while clearly still participating in this convention of compound AABA form.
One song that draws on this convention in a unique way is Iron Maiden’s “Transylvania,” from their debut album Iron Maiden (1980). Iron Maiden wrote some of the most variable and creative song forms of any metal artist from the early 1980s. But this one song in particular features a compound AABA form that hardly departs from the convention at all. The twist? There are no vocals, so you might have missed the “Verse” and “Chorus” structure.