Let’s get one thing out
of the way now: Black Sabbath did not “invent heavy metal”. Why? First of all,
music is a culturally-constructed fabric sewn into society. Genres emerge from
a confluence of different places and attitudes, they are shaped by the greater
political and historical events of the day, similar or identical developments
spring up independent of one another, etc. Trying to pin a medal on whoever “invented
heavy metal” is like trying to suss out who “invented Tragedy”. It just kind of
happens, and is codified after the fact with some contributors being more
influential than others. Harrumph.
Having said all that,
it’s more or less impossible to have a conversation about early metal without
placing Sabbath front and center. They took the proto sludge and amped up
aggression of Detroit’s rock scene and burned away at the psychedelic impurities
until all that was left was a lean, angry, pentatonic machine of ass-kickery. Black
Sabbath’s first album, Black Sabbath,
has a run time of 38:12 and one of the most unsettling covers I’ve ever seen;
that image grants no quarter for comfort, and sets the stage for what lurks on
the disc. The album’s tone is very stripped down, and aside from a few inserted
sound effects, sounds a lot like a live set; I can’t detect any obvious
overdubbing or the sort.
Black
Sabbath is the eponymous first track on the eponymous first
album, and summarizes what the band is about beautifully (horrifyingly?). It
opens up slowly with the sounds of rain and distant church bells, before Tony
Iommi pops off a flatted fifth interval, possibly the most evil sound in
western civilization’s cultural lexicon.
Ozzy Osbourne has a strained, phlegm-filled throat, wailing like
something that should have been put out of its misery long ago.
The rest of the album
is constructed rather oddly. The Wizard
features a harmonica that seems inappropriately cheery for the rest of this
album’s content. Wasp/Behind the Wall of
Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B. is another 800 ton moment for the band, but it’s
constructed as a meandering suite of different unfinished songs. The Wall portion is excellent, introducing
Lovecraft-inspired lyrics to the band’s arsenal. Bassically doesn’t really need to be partitioned from the suite’s
coda, although it does serve as a neat little bit of wah pedal attitude from
bassist Geezer Butler. But N.I.B.
(Rumored to stand for Nativity in Black) is the takeaway from the track. Hard,
mean, musically focused, and replete with Butler lyrics featuring Lucifer beckoning
to the listener, this is a clinic on what Sabbath’s sound would be for the next
decade.
Wicked
World is worth a spin if you’re interested in exploring
Iommi’s jazz and blues inclinations, but it’s a good example of the
Clapton-esque tendencies that had not yet been denatured from the formula. A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning
is another weird suite of pieces not fully developed. While there is nothing
here even close to the iconic status occupied by N.I.B., it does serve as a vibrant library of riffs and bass lines
that would go on to form the spine of many a metal band’s sonic assault. It
clocks in at a shade over fourteen minutes, however, and chooses to meander
more often than not. Other than learning that Iommi gets a lot of mileage out
of employing heavy vibrato in his rhythm work, there isn’t much here for the
casual listener.
Verdict: This album is
uneven at best, but while there is high amount of chaff, the wheat more than
makes up for it. Sabbath would take what worked here and blow up the world with
their next release, but that is a review for another time. 3 out of 5 stars.
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