Reviews

Any metal fan can tell you that the birth of the genre can be traced back to one album. The debut by Black Sabbath. It is the moment a group of four guys from post-war Birmingham pushed blues out it's comfort zone, and twisted into it into something else. From the moment the title track starts and the church bell rings out from a bell-tower somewhere deep in the misty distance, the atmosphere of the album seeps through. When the instruments crash in, and the sinister Devil's Titone rings from the guitar of Tony Iommi, you know this is like no other song. Ever. This is a Hammer Horror film put to music, and the anguished wails of Ozzy Osbourne are like nothing previously unleashed on the public. The song ends with the benchmark for heavy metal, as the galloping riff is accentuated with a shredding solo. Heavy metal was born at that very moment, and rock music would never be the same again. Defining something new isn't easy of course, and there are certainly sign-posts back to where the band came from - 'The Wizard' has a fat and distorted guitar tone, but make no mistake - this is just heavy blues through and through, and would feel right at home on a Deep Purple or Led Zepplin album. Even Osbourne vocals and harmonica line lock this into the late 60s heavy blues boom. 'Behind The Wall Of Sleep' is similar, but much like the title track this one morphs itself into something previously unheard, and Iommi really gets a chance to shine with his soloing. Geezer Butler's bass line weaves and twists like the sounds of a late night smoke-filled jazz club, and it isn't too long before he gets his chance to shine on the intro to 'N.I.B.'. Not only is this track a classic metal assault, often cited as one of the band's greatest songs, but it is also the point that Sabbath did something that would change popular music forever - they sang a song about Satan, and made it great fun to sing along. This was 1970, when the Western world still held Christian values central to their way of life, and with one song four ragged outcasts changed how millions of teenagers would think about religion for countless decades to come. The U.K. version of the album contains the rather insipid cover of Crow's 'Evil Woman' at this point, and the band sounds like they are going through the motions, playing a song that was suggested as it may be a potential hit single (spoiler alert - it wasn't). For once the U.S. version had the better track list, with the brilliant 'Wicked World' midway into the album. A blues romp from start to finish, but with Sabbath at the helm is still has sinister undertones that a band like Cream or Jethro Tull could never have conjured. Bill Ward gets a few moments in the sun, and his thunderous playing pummels through the song, carrying it wonderfully. The album ends with the delicate guitar and Jew-harp of 'Sleeping Village', with minimal vocals but a great instrumental build up before it segues into a 10 minute cover of The Ainsley Dunbar Retaliation's 'Warning'. It is a perfect ending, with its dark and ominous vibe - and although it isn't far in style from the original, it again shows the band's ability to make something sound like a darkness is growing beneath. Osbourne's voice is at its finest here, and the song winds up with Iommi showing the fans of the great bands of the 60s that a new generation of guitar players are about to take control. The production on the album is as simple and raw as the cover art, and there is no studio trickery or post-production here, beyond some solo overdubs. Osbourne's voice is intense and filled with a sense of equal parts anxiety and terror, and without the double-tracking his voice would later constantly be subjected to, he sounds youthful and sincere. This is possibly his greatest ever performance. This isn't just an album, it is a blueprint for thousands of albums to come, with some following the doomier aspects and others preferring the more intense moments and guitar wizardry. Every metal band from this moment onwards owes its existence to this very point in time, and whilst the release of Black Sabbath probably isn't that relevant in the entire linage of human history - it's pretty fucking important if you like heavy music.