After the last article about the importance of Black Sabbath and their role in starting off the movement we all know and love as Heavy Metal I thought it was fitting that the first of my classic album reviews should be Black Sabbath’s first album, Black Sabbath.
You’ve probably all heard it, most of you will already love it, so really all I’m doing is offering my opinion on the album. I’d had a couple of beers and was ready to settle in for the night so I decided that this album, the first real heavy metal album would be the one I’d listen to before dropping off for the night. So onto ye olde record player it went, and off to lie on the couch I went.
From the onset there is not much better than laying in darkness and hearing the first three notes of the song Black Sabbath kick in. On record you can hear the vibrato from the guitar, and it still sends chills down my spine to this day. The three note combination used in this intro is called the “The Devils Tri-note” and invokes a rather dark sinister feel. The minute the heavier guitar riff kicks in you know this is the moment in time when hard rock became Heavy Metal. Even if they didn’t have the term for it coined just yet. When you listen to this you are listening to history being made.
Ozzy’s voice kicks in… There is something sinister about his voice that really hasn’t been explored in rock music up until this point. The eerie sound, the demonic aspect of the song and its lyrics all kick in and you have what could be the greatest debut track of all time.
Next up we have The Wizard. Some great guitar crunch in this. This is where you can start to see how versatile the band really is. After the epic as F–k title song this is the song where the crunch that separates Sabbath from the rock bands that came before them becomes apparent.
Next up, Behind the Wall of Sleep, the band show more control over melody here, and it starts to become clear how versatile the band really is. Next up we have N.I.B.. As important as guitars are in Heavy Metal this song really gives bass player Geezer Butler a chance to shine. Not just the intro either, this bass playing noodles under the song for the whole song which shows off his skill and creativity while adding another dimension to the songs.
Evil Woman continues in the same vein with Geezer showing off some brilliant bass chops and Tony Iommi’s brilliant guitar work showing some great sings of what I’d call “proto-shred” where there’s some real blues based but still heavy firepower in the guitar solos.
Sleeping Village Kicks off with a haunting acoustic guitar into which again shows Tony Iommi’s control over another form of guitar playing. Bear in mind for the first metal record we’ve now seen some of the doomiest riffs to ever be layed down, then guitar crunch like nothing we’d ever seen before, then he shows us his blues based lead guitar skills and now the his control over melody with an acoustic. Warning up after this one and this further expands on Tony Iommi’s skill with blues chops. This is a beast of a song clocking in at over 10 minutes. Over the top of all this Ozzy’s (both this song and the album up until this point) vocals are magnificent. He’s not technically the greatest singer ever to grace the planet but his voice perfectly suits what’s going on with this record. The lyrics (written by Geezer) really create some stories over this and other tracks. Another part of what makes this record so incredible.
It’s at this point in the recording I realise I haven’t said anything about Bill Wards performance on drums. This isn’t the extreme metal performance that metal would become known for within a the next 5 – 10 years but he plays the hell out of the songs and his beats are creative and suit the songs perfectly. His fills are wild and loose (in a cool way) and like any good drummer really add another dimension to proceedings. At this point I realise i’m still listening to Warning and it’s dissolved into some sort of heavy metal blues jam. Every member of the band gets a chance to shine and show off their chops. Glorious stuff.
The album closer Wicked World really gives drummer Bill Ward a chance to show off his cops again before kicking into the song proper. I guess as a closer this basically wraps up the album perfectly showing off a lot of the individual skills they’ve shown on display for the rest of the album up until this point.
I’ve linked the official 2009 remaster from Black Sabbath’s youtube channel blow for you guys to check out. Hopefully they at least get a few cents royalties out of this. But really if you don’t have this in your collection, go out and buy it now on whatever format you use! IT IS ESSENTIAL. If you’re so inclined its well worth hearing this nice and loud with the VINYL version (not official)
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