"Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath on the album Black Sabbath really says it all, extremely dark and easily the most disturbing song written by the band to date. Anyone familiar with heavy music has certainly heard the track, but it still sounds amazing after the hundredth(probably a lot more) listen. The riff is positively creepy, and is supposedly based on the "tritone", a supposedly evil chord progression. I love the deluge of rain at the beginning of the song, a perfect opening for the "theme song" of heavy metal. Ozzy's singing is bone-chilling, sending shivers down the spine of anyone with a soul. Bill's minimalist jazz drumming keeps the tension high, as well as Geezer's low rumble of a bass line. But the real star of the show is Tony Iommi, playing the main riff (very simple) with an amazing degree of vibrato and tension. The song picks up near the end, and Bill provides a military-like march to oblivion, warning of the coming of Satan. The has been interpreted in many ways, but most agree that the lyrics are really a warning about the dangers of the occult and black magic, rather than an ode to evil.
"The Wizard" is supposedly about Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" saga. Showing the band's early blues sound, it features Ozzy performing on harmonica, quite well I might add. The riff is quite simple, again based around three chords. But the simplicity works, and Bill Ward's complex and thunderous drumming keeps your interest the whole way though. Ozzy sounds great as well, very gritty and bluesy, a great song. "WASP" is first part of "Behind the Wall of Sleep", and has been merged as such on most reissues of the album. A short instrumental, I like the celtic-tinged progressions, but otherwise not much to talk about. "Behind the Wall of Sleep" kicks in with the classic Sabbath sound, jazzy pounding from Bill and intricate bass fills from Geezer. Ozzy sounds pretty gruff here as well, singing much lower than usual, an stylistic characteristic of late 1960s blues acts. I like the song, but what comes next is the highlight of the album.
"Bassically" is just another name for the short bass solo by Geezer Butler before "N.I.B." smashes its way into the world. "N.I.B." is considered to be the best Sabbath track by many, and I often agree with that statement. So monumental is the racket made by N.I.B., it is really hard to fathom that the song was recorded in 1969. The riff "bassically" invents the motion of headbanging by begging that thou head be banged, Iommi clearly invents tapping (or, at least stylizes it) during the solo, and Geezer would inspire a generation of metal bassists with the very intricate lines he created for the song. All of this is backed by Bill's forceful drumming, and insanely unsettling lyrics, a love song written from the perspective of Satan to his minions. Pretty brutal, but an amazing sound.
"Side 2" opens with "Wicked World". Not included on the U.K. version, I nonetheless really like the song, certainly more than the U.K. inclusion of "Evil Woman", which I consider to be one of the worst songs ever recorded by Sabbath. A pretty depressing tale of injustice and poverty, it clearly shows how Sabbath were originally given the "downer rock" tag. Ozzy sounds amazing here, his voice still untouched by the years of substance abuse that would give him the rasp he would later develop. I like Tony Iommi's half-reversed solo, an amazing feat give the two days that this album was recorded in. The solo is also great, and it is played in isolation, giving the space all to Tony, very cool idea.
"A Bit of Finger" is not really a song, but another introduction to a song (why did Warner do this?). A few gentle acoustic chords strummed over the sounds of a lonely "jaw harp", nothing really to say. The song then transitions into "Sleeping Village". I have always loved "Sleeping Village", an immensely unsettling song that reminds of many a horror movie, in which villagers turn to zombies, or whatever sort of creature the movie may be about. Ozzy sounds great, delivering a very disturbing moan of a vocal. "Warning" occupies the last ten minutes of the album, but has always been a bit too "jammy" for me. I like the "evil woman" lyrics, and the bluesy riffs and jazzy drumming, but get a little bored with the relentless drum fills and guitar solos near the end. It just seems to drag on past the point in which it should be over, the band likely trying to transfer their very long live songs at that point into a studio context.
"Black Sabbath" is a very good album, and has more than enough moments of brilliance that show why the band would reach the heights of success that they did. The recording is a little raw, but therein lies a lot of its charm, the sound of a band reaching for success, giving it literally all they had. Witness the birth of metal in this album, painful at times, but what a noise.
Rating-9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment