Arguably the first true METAL album ever, Black Sabbath released their first, self titled album in 1970. The first song on the album is also titled Black Sabbath, which may lead one to think the band lacks creativity, but all you really need to do is listen to the song and you'll find that Black Sabbath lacks nothing in the creativity department...they created METAL!!
You can learn a lot about Black Sabbath by listening to the song Black Sabbath. First off, all it takes is a one song sample to tell if you'll like them or not. If you like the song Black Sabbath, chances are you'll like most of their other music too, if you don't like the song, then you probably aren't gonna like Sabbath's other music either...maybe you'll like the song Changes.
Another thing you can learn is one of Sabbath's favorite subject matter: Satan. (The other favorite is drugs).
Big black shape with eyes of fire
Telling people their desire
Satan's sitting there, he's smiling
Watches those flames get higher and higher
Oh no, no, please God help me
Man the Christians must have loved these guys in the 70's.
The rest of the album kicks ass as well. You've got Sabbath classics in Wizard, (all the musicians were reading Lord of the Rings back in the day). Not to mention N.I.B. a song written from Lucifer's point of view. The American and European editions differ from each other, (I own the European edition), placing some songs in different orders, or having different tracks on the separate editions. The core of the album is there on each edition though, so having one album over the other doesn't matter much. Either way you get galloping riffs, insane solos, and classic Ozzy wail. Sabbath tore down the gates of hell, set up shop in Satan's front yard, and began to build their metal destiny with this album.
This is an absolute essential album for any metal fan. If you don't own, buy it, and hail Sabbath!
1 comment:
Black Sabbath never gets old to my ears. They will always sound fresh. It's amazing, but I think Iommi wrote about 50% of the best rock/metal riffs ever. Pretty much every metal band rips off Sabbath riffs. And Sabbath plays slow! It doesn't really sound slow or feel slow, but they get locked in a groove. Blame it on Sabbath and Kyuss, but this is my favorite style of rock/metal ever.
Yeah, the title track is completely origninal. Nothing reminds me of that song.
Cool review.
-BF
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