Black Sabbath — Black Sabbath (1970)
Album of the year
Born out of blues and rock, an unlikely group of musicians overcame a fateful and gruesome accident to create an entirely new genre of music.
We enjoy horror movies, why wouldn’t people pay to hear horror in music?
This thought was the nucleus of metal. In stark contrast to the summer of love just a few years prior, Black Sabbath entered the scene. No bang, no bust… just an eerie creep into music’s yard.
Provenance
During the pre-Sabbath era, guitarist Toni Iommi was working at a metal-factory. He was about to go home when Iommi was called back to stay late. That night his fingertips on the middle and ring finger of his fretting hand were caught in-between two heavy iron plates slamming together. He was told he’d never play again.
This accident forced Iommi to develop a new style of play focused on power chords and heavy driving riffs, now a hallmark of the genre. He played with metal thimbles on his fingertips and used banjo strings tuned down*. These low and loose strings were easier to bend and gave the music a heavier sound.
Yes, the sound of metal music was born in a gruesome accident in a metal factory. Not many things make me wonder about fate, but this provenance sounds like a collaboration of God and the Devil’imself.
The Birth of Metal
Sabbath experimented with a few other names and sounds, mostly blues influenced. Undoubtedly there were other bands initiating the metal sequence, but Sabbath is frequently accredited with the first album that is clearly metal. I agree, but it’s hard to say for sure which album!
Sabbath’s other release from 1970 is more well known, more rounded out, more consistent, and generally more metal. I think I’d label PARANOID is the first metal album and BLACK SABBATH as the last proto-metal album. It’s tricky to parse out though, like any evolution. The music sounds mostly metal-ancestral, but the titular track and much of the lyrics are clearly something new.
Track by Track
Black Sabbath
A self-titled song on a self-titled album. It defines them. Like the drawled out arpeggio the song opens with, this track goes against everything that music stood for. Ominous, uncomfortable, chilling, and foreboding. The arpeggio was even called diabolus in musica (the devil in music). Hellish themes have been a staple of the genre ever since.
This song really gets legendary for me at the end. You can hear the story painted in tones. A final climax of a villain. They fall! But are they really dead?..
LUNGE!
The Wizard
A fantastic follow up to the horrific album opener. The Wizard depicts a strange and neurotic wizard wandering through harsh conditions.
“Never talking,
Just keeps walking…”
This song is epic. But unlike the opener, this track pays homage to their blues roots. Has there been a metal song that rocks the harmonica since?
Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Bassically
The opening section leads with solid rock-blues. At 35 seconds in, it transitions into a heavier and steadier beat with lyrics of death, chill, sorrow, remorse, corpses, and darkness. A brief bass solo highlights the heavy low tones that come to define metal. All in all, this segment is a microcosm of the transition from blues and rock into metal itself. These three collective tracks could have been called “Evolution”.
The brief interlude of Bassically grants the album space and sets the stage for one of Black Sabbath’s best songs.
N.I.B.
The music here is closer to hard rock than the Black Sabbath track, but the lyrical theme of Lucifer in love paints a grey picture of religion, a theme that would carry through Sabbath’s career. Rumored to stand for nativity in black, this has been debunked by the band. It’s just a pen like beard.
Wicked World
This track is only on the US version. A solid track that feels much more bluesy than what you find on their later releases. It’s a provides a nice blend on the album and highlights the uniquity of tracks like Black Sabbath and N.I.B. by contrast. With the truly solo guitar solo, this track is reminiscent of Led Zepplin.
A Bit of Finger / Sleeping Village / Warning
Continuing on the slow horror vibe. Jaw harp twanging. I wish there was more than just a bit of finger. Sleeping Village has a jammy feel. At about 4 minutes in the Warning comes. It feels to me like a continuation of N.I.B.
The next 10 minutes are just great hard rock / metal full of great lyrics that further define the tone of the album and the future of the genre. Iron, ominous nature, and sorrow.
The lyrics are catchy as a single and are broken up by lengthy soloing. Kinda like Light My Fire by The Doors. Totally different sound, but to a similar affect. Warning is one of my favorite Sabbath songs and one that is relatively underrated.
Conclusion
From this exceptional launch point, Sabbath went on to an amazing string of releases through the early 70’s. Although I wouldn’t quite rank this as their best album, maybe not even their best album from 1970, it’s really cool to listen to primordial soup that launched their career.
I do think this album does horror better than their other albums. I do wish they did more slow and spooky tracks like Black Sabbath later in their discography. Remiss of them in my opinion. If you want that spook, you gotta listen here.
Footnotes
*Down-tuning wasn’t done until MASTER OF REALITY
