Release date: February 13, 1970
Label: Vertigo Records
Producer: Rodger Bain
Running time: 38:12
Genre: heavy metal
Rating: 9.5
The legendary Black Sabbath, pioneers of heavy metal, can surely boast one of the most colorful careers in the story of rock music, one that had no shortage of ups and downs. The cult quartet, who in 1969 were still playing as the blues rock outfit Earth before they found out a band with that name already existed and renamed themselves after the infamous holiday of all real and imagined witches (actually after the 1963 film of the same name, a horror flick starring Boris Karloff), was made up of four unusually colorful characters. The most notorious of them to this day is surely the charismatic-yet-troublesome singer John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne, who later also found fame with a solo career, while the band’s technical muscle always lay in the hands of the great guitar innovator and oddball Tony Iommi (to this day the only member of every single Sabbath incarnation), the striking bassist and lyricist Terry ‘Geezer’ Butler, and the drumming ‘bone-crusher’ Bill Ward.
What won Black Sabbath their name and rep as the ‘bad boys’ in a sea of musical idealists, right after the release of that cult self-titled debut, was the infamous aura of the occult and darkness that surrounded them through most of their career, which led plenty of people to link them with Satanism. That belief was only strengthened by the upside-down cross on the inner sleeve of the record. Ozzy and Geezer’s lyrics on “Black Sabbath” really were full of metaphors about run-ins with apparitions and biblical demons, which is especially interesting given that Butler was raised Catholic, but every member of the band always denied any Satanic worship. The lads from gray, hopeless working-class Birmingham certainly had plenty of material to draw on for their lyrics, and Ozzy later, once he was famous and doing his own thing, made big business out of those supposed occult connections too.
Black Sabbath weren’t the only dark band at the time ‘chasing the devil’s tail’ or singing about post-apocalyptic visions (prog rock pioneers King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator, and the openly occult Black Widow, had already been spooking people a year earlier with their prophetic forecasts of a bleak future and plenty of brutal sonic outbursts), but they did it most consistently and dedicated the bulk of their career to it. While those progressive rock legends swore mainly by the technical chops of individual members, Sabbath gave the main place in their sonic collage to the punch of grimy riffs draped over slow rhythms, a logical result of their blues roots and of Iommi’s factory accident, in which he lost the tips of two fingers on his right hand and had to tune his guitar lower because of it. In the process they inadvertently invented a new genre of rock music, later recognized as heavy metal.
The title track, a cult masterpiece, is practically the embodiment of classic Black Sabbath: a true portrait of gloom, nightmare and the occult all in one, and one that still gets ‘hung’ on every gig as a must. One of the most wicked and dark rock compositions of all time, its lyrics and ambience match the eerie cover perfectly. The cover shows a mysterious woman in black standing in front of an old mill at the edge of a forest, looking like she’s getting ready for a witches’ dance. This ‘picture and likeness of evil’ opens to the sound of rain and a tolling church bell calling the faithful to a ‘black mass’, until Iommi’s punchy guitar riff, sounding like thunder from a clouded sky, breaks the whole thing open. The slow, rolling tempo, built on irritated bass lines and gloomy drum transitions, kneads together a deeply depressing and spine-chilling atmosphere. Ozzy’s frightened-yet-malevolent, hair-raising vocal tells of a close encounter with the lord of hell. After the slow first part, a complex instrumental section with brutal guitar passages and a drum stampede kicks in at the close.
By Geezer’s own account, he got the inspiration for this classic from a real event: he woke up in the middle of the night from a heavy nightmare and suddenly saw, for a moment, a creepy figure shrouded in black at the foot of his bed. Before that bizarre incident, this born Catholic had painted the walls of his bedroom black and hung upside-down crosses and pictures of Satan on them. Before going to sleep he’d been reading a book on witchcraft borrowed from Ozzy, and when he woke up, the apparition vanished in a flash of light after a brief confrontation. The borrowed witchcraft book vanished along with it, which was the most bizarre part of the whole story. Geezer reported the incident to Ozzy at the first opportunity, and Ozzy then wrote the unforgettable lyrics mentioned above.
The bluesy evergreen “The Wizard” is laced with the mischievous sounds of Ozzy’s harmonica and Iommi’s choppy, fight-ready guitar riff. The cheeky harmonica is kept company by grooving bass lines and cowbells. There’s really no need to guess that this classic was made under the influence of intoxicating substances while reading about Gandalf’s adventures in Middle-earth. Ozzy sings about the exploits and travels of the famous literary wizard. Tolkien’s works were hugely popular among plenty of rock bands especially at the turn of the sixties into the seventies. It’s also the only song on the album that doesn’t revolve around dark, depressing themes or the occult, and it has a positive outlook.
“Behind the Wall of Sleep” is another standard steeped in mythological themes, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”. Here too the tempo is slow, with a red-hot guitar riff tearing through the air while Ozzy’s ‘wailing’ echoes like a person lost in the middle of a post-apocalyptic desert. Iommi’s guitar finesse, led by the solo, is still a treat for the ears today, and Geezer’s closing bass solo is no less spectacular.
This is followed by a direct segue into the classic “N.I.B.”, which features one of Iommi’s most characteristic guitar riffs. With its punch, it helped establish a number of heavy metal standards for future generations. The mood is once again gloomy and shattering, with Ozzy’s tormented vocals. Most fans long thought “N.I.B.” was short for “Nativity in Black”, since the lyrics tell of the world through the eyes of the fairy-tale lord of hell, but many years later Ozzy said in an interview that it refers to drummer Bill Ward’s goatee. The band members liked to set it on fire with a lighter as part of their childish pranks, which once almost ended tragically.
“Evil Woman”, a cover of the obscure American blues rock band Crow, has a much more relaxed vibe than most of the album and, as its title suggests, is about heartbreak. Ozzy complains here about heartache, but if he’d known what awaited him in the not-so-distant future, or what kind of witch he’d marry, he’d have realized how prophetic his singing sounds. A simple bluesy structure with a slightly tipsy rhythm and a grimy main riff finds its outlet in a vengeful chorus.
The gloomy “Sleeping Village” is steeped in enigmatic-sounding acoustic guitar chords and bass effects in between, until the dark atmosphere is dispelled by the intrusion of a frisky guitar riff and an unexpected drum charge. Sudden time changes with improvisations soon completely demolish the central structure of this unusual composition and show the band as great rhythmic adventurers.
The closing experimental treat “Warning” is another cover of a blues rock standard, originally by Aynsley Dunbar’s Retaliation, led by the renowned all-round drummer Aynsley Dunbar, best known for his work with Frank Zappa and later Journey. Ozzy’s sorrowful vocal, deliberately ‘drunken’ bluesy guitar riffs, a rattling bass line and well-timed drum fills create a classic smoky blues vibe. It’s a sort of half prog rock, half hard rock hybrid with plenty of elements of psychedelia and blues, mostly thanks to the many improvisations. What starts as a classic blues rock confession, with Ozzy’s disappointed outpouring of unhappy love, soon morphs into an instrumental section with stretched-out improvised excursions. Black Sabbath always carried within them huge potential for improvisational experiments, but never really made use of it, preferring to become the first heavy metal band in history rather than one of many prog rock groups. Iommi undoubtedly learned a lot from his short, one-week stint with Jethro Tull, where he didn’t want to play the role of Ian Anderson’s second ‘fiddle’, but it earned him his first, hugely important professional experience.
With their self-titled debut, Black Sabbath pulled off a genuine revolution: while tinkering with the blues, they unexpectedly stumbled onto a whole new form of rock music, which the critics of the day dubbed heavy metal, making this one of the most important albums in the history of the genre. Right from the start they managed to make up for their beginner’s naivety and technical shortcomings with sonic uniqueness, innovation and the exceptional flair of the individual members for ‘drama’, creating one of the best debuts by any hard rock band. And the gloomy iconography that surrounds this cult achievement with every listen has become the yardstick for a whole host of future hard rock and metal bands.
Review by: Peter Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Black Sabbath
2. The Wizard
3. Behind the Wall of Sleep
4. N.I.B.
5. Evil Woman
6. Sleeping Village
7. Warning
Black Sabbath:
Ozzy Osbourne – vocals, harmonica on “The Wizard”
Tony Iommi – guitar, slide guitar on “The Wizard”
Geezer Butler – bass
Bill Ward – drums
