1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 180. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)

 

All together now: SHARON!!!

Here’s Ozzy in his prime, though, before he became the parodic shuffling paterfamilias of later fame. And here another member of the British heavy metal scene arrives in the list – just as there’s the Pentangle/Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span triumvirate of British folk, there’s the triumvirate of Led Zeppelin/Black Sabbath/Deep Purple of British metal at the heavier end of the scale.

There are parts of the album that do sound like Led Zeppelin, especially some of the guitar solo motifs, but the most obvious soundalike is the track NIB which pretty much nicks the riff from Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love, but then runs off with it into a whole darker area.

And it’s this darkness that is at the heart of the Sabbath sound. The opening track, Black Sabbath, is theatrical in tone, starting with sounds of storms and crows, an ominous three-note guitar motif playing as Ozzy intones the rise of Satan in a black mass from the point of view of the hapless victim, evoking Hammer Horror film, before turning into a galloping hard rock instrumental. It’s actually pretty creepy atmospheric stuff, I was listening to it on headphones while walking the dog at night, and it gave me chills.

Fantastic elements continue through the album, with The Wizard (who is at least a good wizard) and Sleeping Village which, like Black Sabbath, starts out quietly and then turns into a heavy guitar solo, presumably implying the Monsters From Without that lurk in the darkness. Even when the topic is relationships, Sabbath go dark. The track Warning begins with lyrics about first meeting the narrators love on a dark and stormy night, and how “I’ve got to love you” – he has no choice in the matter, drawn on by feelings even knowing that the relationship is bad for him.

I tend to find an entire album of heavy metal can get a bit draining, and I did listen to this in two sessions, but it’s pretty good, recorded in only two days apparently. Guitarist Tony Iommi lost the tips of his fretting fingers in an industrial accident, and his style uses plastic extensions plus down-tuned strings to allow him to more easily bend them, plus extensive use of hammer-on/off, which also helps to cement the distinctive heavy metal sound. This in itself isn’t as much as a sudden shift as I thought it might have been. Bands like Blue Cheer, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Cream, even The Monks, have been playing with heavier beats, fuzzier sounds, and squealing guitar solos for a while now; what Black Sabbath bring to the table are dark and doom-laden songs with occult overtones.