BLACK SABBATH — Black Sabbath (review)

BLACK SABBATH — Black Sabbath album cover Album · 1970 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Stephen
The saga of Black Sabbath started after the band watched a long queue line of people wanting to see horror movie, and by that time they decided they want to recreate an equivalent to what they called horror music. Released right on Friday, 13th, 1970, this eponymous debut is often cited as a landmark release of heavy metal and Black Sabbath is one of the founding fathers. The musical style is mainly blues rock with a lot of heavy riffs, considering the time of the year. The atmosphere is dark, gloomy, and depressive, and this style is later responsible for the creation of doom and gothic metal.

The title track started with the rains and thunder followed by tolling bells. After 4-minutes of slowtempo moan and frightening nuance, the swelling rhythm starts pouring in before fading out nicely. "The Wizard" is another strong track featuring Ozzy with his harmonica bound with a perfect combination of Iommi's conquering riffs and Ward's infectious drumming. "Behind The Wall of Sleep" is another great slowtempo track with mesmerizing riffs. "N.I.B" cracked out with a memorable riffs and a genius grinned lyric from Lucifer's point of view. This is my other fave track and I also love how Ugly Kid Joe covered this classic later. The bluesy and Crow's cover of "Evil Woman" sounded a bit monotonous but Butler displayed a nice bass slap here, worth checking out. "Sleeping Village” showed a remarkable Iommi/Butler duel. "Warning" is the longest track of the album and not an original piece of the band, somehow a bit flat and boring to my ear, but I love the wonderful jam in the middle of the song and emerged as one of Iommi's finest moment.

Black Sabbath's debut is amazingly important, interesting, and intuitive. My most fave tracks here are the title track, "The Wizard", and "N.I.B", probably not a surprise since those three are among their regular concert songs. This is an exciting album and will appeal to fans of classic rock, traditional heavy metal, and also modern day doom and gothic metal.
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