Label: Castle Communications PLC (France), NELCD 6002
Style: Hard Rock
Country: Birmingham, England
Time: 41:25
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 276 Mb
Charts: UK #8, AUS #8, CAN #29, FIN #13, GER #8, NL #6, US #23. UK & CAN: Gold; US: Platinum.
Listening
to Black Sabbath’s self-titled 1970 album is a lesson in heavy metal
history. Though bands such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple influenced
the formation of the genre, Black Sabbath is often considered the first
true heavy metal band, perhaps because they were the first to devote
their focus to the darker themes that became an often controversial
element of metal. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin also has been quoted as
saying he thought Black Sabbath was the first true heavy metal band.
Living in an impoverished English town where career choices for most
were limited to factory worker or criminal, the boys of Black Sabbath
could not relate to the idealistic hippie music that was popular when
the band formed in 1968, considering themselves a blues band. Guitarist
Toni Iomi observed the lines that formed at the local movie theater
whenever it showed horror films and remarked that if people were so
willing to pay to be scared, perhaps they should try playing
evil-sounding music. With that in mind, they took their name from a
Boris Karloff film.
The title track exemplified Sabbath’s goal of
capturing horror in music. It began with atmospheric sounds of heavy
rain, thunder, and a single, tolling bell. Then Iomi played a slow,
ominous riff based on the “devil’s tritone,” an interval notoriously
avoided in medieval music because its dissonance evoked a sense of
evil—perfect for Sabbath’s purposes. Though speedy, seemingly effortless
shredding has become nearly synonymous with heavy metal, the slogging
pace of this formative song was truly heavy, creating a feeling of
immense weight and pressure intensified by the dread-soaked vocals of
Ozzy Osbourne in his prime. The story of being dragged to hell by a
figure in black was not conveyed so much by the lyrics as by the despair
in Osbourne’s voice when he moaned, “Oh no, no, please God help me.”
The song was haunting in a way that most listeners in 1970 had no idea
how to process. This dire sound eventually became the primary influence
of the doom metal subgenre in the early 1980s.
“The Wizard” opened
with evidence of Black Sabbath’s blues roots in the form of a forlorn
harmonica, soon backed up by bassist Geezer Butler and the real star of
the song, drummer Bill Ward. The simple, repetitive melody taken in
turns by Osbourne’s vocals and harmonica required little focus from the
listener, freeing them to be carried along by Ward’s varied,
jazz-influenced rhythms.
(full version: classicrockreview.wordpress.com/?s=Black+Sabbath+%281970%29)
Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog.
D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The
second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the
format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).
01. Black Sabbath (06:22)
02. The Wizard (04:24)
03. Behind The Wall Of Sleep (03:37)
04. N.I.B. (06:08)
05. Evil Woman (03:24)
06. Sleeping Village (10:44)
07. Warning (03:34)
08. Tomorrows Dream (Live. bonus track) (03:09)
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