Warner Bros / Wea
1970
Black Sabbath
About This Album
Black Sabbath's debut album is given over to lengthy songs and suite-like pieces where individual songs blur together and riffs pound away one after another, frequently under extended jams. There isn't much variety in tempo, mood, or the band's simple, blues-derived musical vocabulary, but that's not the point; Sabbath's slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness. Songs like the apocalyptic title track, "N.I.B.," and "The Wizard" make their obsessions with evil and black magic seem like more than just stereotypical heavy metal posturing because of the dim, suffocating musical atmosphere the band frames them in. This blueprint would be refined and occasionally elaborated upon over the band's next few albums, but there are plenty of metal classics already here. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Track List
(try tracks 1,2 and 3)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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how could you miss the connections between this debut album and metallica's debut(before the war of flames) 'Kill 'em all', except the demons chasing the music at a frentic pace, maniacal. both exclamation points announcing 'here we are' while metallica had the franticness to it, sabbath had this ponderous sound that is Iommi.
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Yep, Kenny. The European release had Evil Woman as the fourth track instead of Wicked World, which was the fourth track on the United States version. However, both songs are on the 2004 box set release of this album so all is now well.
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Forgive them for the mistaken track listings, as I believe this is what the original American print consisted of.
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If you wanted to listen to something similar from this era, you couldn't find it. Also, it seems there are a few tracks that were left off of this song list. NIB/Behind the wall of sleep, hell may as well leave the wizard and the title song off while your at it. THIS ALBUM IS THE ROCK AND ROLL MANUAL, GET IT RIGHT PANDORA! A bit of finger and Sleeping Village are two separate tracks.
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I guess I shouldn't have attempted to split hairs. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Not saying it didn't spurn metal.I just think calling it metal limits the scope of its ingredients. PS-Some think Led Zep "invented" heavy metal, some think Cream did, some think Hendrix did. I think all of the above and I think Sabbath put the final touches on it...with the albums Paranoid, Master of Reality and finally Volume 4.
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This IS metal, metal started with this album as a heavy blues based style or rock. the defining factor is the Dark lyrics and heavy blues riffs that owuld later expand into the variety of subgenres we now enjoy and begin to draw on calssical music more than blues. WIht this album Black Sabbath invented metal, they were the first metal band and this is the first metal album.
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Good points below. I still can't believe one of the most unique debut albums in music history only gets a paragraph "review". Not to split hairs, but people AND the review keep mentioning "Metal". This to me is not really metal...yet. It's still bluesy just with way more distortion than albums before it. Obviously, Sabbath would expand their sound in the future. This to me is still Led Zep times 100. Paranoid and Master of Reality get closer to a NON BLUES/Metal formula.
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Steve Huey you are an absolute brainless baffoon! All of the posts that assert this mans idiocy are dead on the money. "Songs like the apocalyptic title track, "N.I.B.," and "The Wizard" make their obsessions with evil and black magic seem like more than just stereotypica l heavy metal posturing because of the dim, suffocating musical atmosphere the band frames them in". As is asserted in other posts, Black Sabbath INVENTED the genre.
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This album is definitly one of the most influential of all time and is a must have for any metal collection.
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Black sabbath started heavy metal. before them there was no "typical heavy metal posturing" they invented the genre. this album kicked it off and then Paranoid set the standard for all that would follow.
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Steve Huey, the reviewer, is stunningly nescient of the finer points of metal and rock history, as pointed out below this comment. This review should be sticken from the record as frivoless. This album changed the face of music.
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this review was way off base. the reviewer is not rooted in rock history. there wasn't much , if anything, like it in the world at the time. should bring that fact into any discussion of this work. dirty, heavy rock with dark lyrics to boot were not the true norm of the time. this is stand alone stuff... it started/crea t e d whole new genres of rock and roll music. period.
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if people would not of liked this alboum then we would not have parinod!
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Indeed!! to me, this album is as influential as "Sgt. Peppers" or Hendrix, etc. Sabbath was still young and a work in progress, but it was clear this was a different brand of music than anything that had come before.
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