Customer Reviews

Black Sabbath

5 star:		(141)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While heavy metal bands such as Blue Cheer and Led Zeppelin released their debut albums before Black Sabbath, but they were not as heavy as this bone-crunching sludge album. The album starts with their theme song, which in six little minutes started the whole doom metal thing. Then comes The Wizard, which is a harmonica-laden, metallic song. Then the trio, Bassically, Behind The Wall Of Sleep, and N.I.B. Then the sludgy Wicked World with the great middle piece. Then the 15-minute-plus Warning/Sleeping Village. This is definitely one of the essential metal albums.

I first heard Black Sabbath on a rock compilation when I was 14 and have been listening to them for 17 years, in which time this album has not worn thin. Even apart from the whole "they invented heavy metal" thing and the patent influence of this album and what came after on all rock music thereafter, this album stands on its own as a brilliant piece of music from the early 70s. It is the musical equivalent of a Hammer Horror film, but has aged much better!

The very first Metal Album and to this day one of the best and most creative ever made this is timeles music that never wil get old, this is The Metal Bibel that any serius Hard rocker must have, if you dont got this your a joke. The most essential metal album ever.

when i first heard the black sabbath album sabbath bloddy sabbath i thought they werent that great so i guess i underestimated them in each album and so on,but then after i decided to buy their debut cause it did start heavy metal so i decided to give it a shot.once i bought this i was about to here the title track entitled black sabbath and that song rules big time!!!it starts with rain and church bells and then comes scary defining guitar work and ozzys greatest vocal performance and the lyrics scare the hell out of you i think thats the best song on the album.the wizard unfortunatly i think is terrible cause its guitats drums and bass with ozzy playing harmonica and they prove they made a terrible combination with that crap..but i dont think its THAT bad.next come a LOOOOOONG 4 songs in 10 min...N.I.B. is sooo good and that song is so full of good riffs i droped my jaw in amazment of tony iommis blistering guitar riffs.wicked world and all the rest of the songs are good too.so if you wanna know about how heavy metal began,pick this up and youll know everything about what black sabbath and heavy metal are all about!!!.

Some albums make you wonder if a band had something more than their own ideas behind writing great songs. I'm not talking about the ideas of other people or record companies, but a spiritual force. In Black Sabbaths' case, it may have been Satan or God.

There aren't that many great bands out there, so it's important to find the ones who are. Not only did Black Sabbath define heavy metal, they did it in a time when it was very unacceptable to speak of the things they did. The songs were not written for radio consumption because of the length.
Moreover, they didn't have the benefit of MTV and high dollar promotions that exist today. They had to reach fame with their creativity and live shows. These guys worked their butts off.
Also, it was a big risk to write songs about darkness and evil, with gloomy music to back it, in a time when the trend was being positive with the whole peace and love hippie movement. Black Sabbath blazed a path of nihilism that still exists today. They lived in reality more so than any of the hippies with their utopian dreams.

Ozzy Osbornes' voice was the best it has ever been on this debut recording. The vocals got higher from this point on. The higher his voice got, the less it matched the heavy riffs and dark lyrics. Tony Iommi's simple and slow riffs embody the power of the electric guitar. The music was so heavy and loud it could shake every bone in your body.

The opening track, "Black Sabbath," is a song that no Goth band has ever been able to top. The way the guitar hits in unison with the bell and then hums go right through the listener. In other words, it's simply powerful. "The Wizard" is a strange track because of the harmonic, but has an overall druggy feeling. The following song, written in four parts, locks you into the album and carries you away. "N.I.B." will leave you shaken. The following songs are not the best Black Sabbath has written, but still very easy to listen to that help the listener transition back into reality.

Lester Bangs may have been correct when he called Black Sabbath the first Catholic rock band. It scared people with the Satanic songs and then turned around with a Christian message. The switch in themes more than likely confused most people. Their spirituality mixed with drugs created something very unique, even if they didn't get any help from any higher powers. But, it's hard to imagine any mortal men having so much impact on music and society in general.

Some may say that bands like Led Zepplin started heavy metal, but I disagree...I feel Black Sabbath was the first true metal band and this was the first true metal record. Over 35 years later, this album is still astonishing; time period isn't even a factor at all. Whenever I tell people that this CD was recorded in 1969, their feeling is of disbelief; Black Sabbath doesn't reflect what was happening in the time period one bit. No matter what metal of today that you like, the influence of Black Sabbath's early years is always heard. Black Sabbath's debut truly captures a feeling that was unheard of at the time. Each song is just so powerful and raw. Though many many years later, Tony Iommi went on to form his own versions of Black Sabbath while Ozzy went solo; nothing these members do will ever compare to Sabbath in its classic lineup. Sure, the members went on to make great music, but its got nothing on the first few Sabbath albums. These guys truly started dark music. I got to see the mighty Sabbath in classic form back at Ozzfest a handful of years ago and you best believe that while on stage many of the bands took their time during their sets top pay homage to the mighty Sabbath. Though I feel the band's sound wasn't truly perfected until "Paranoid", this is quite possibly the greatest debut of all time. If you're a metal fan and don't have this in your collection, that's a crime. I plan on selling my copies of the Sabbath disks with Ozzy though so that I can buy the "Black Box" set of all of these disks which should be incredible! I suggest anyone interested go check that out. All I can say is that these are the pioneers baby!

Although this may not be the album that started it all, it certainly influenced a lot of heavy metal to come. just one look at the cover and ya know it's gonna be good. That's gotta be one of my all-time favorite album covers. The album kicks off with the sludgy, doomy title track which ends in faster doom. Then comes the harmonica-driven Wizard, but it is still as heavy as anything out there, don't be fooled by the harmonica. Then the trio Behind the Wall Of Sleep, Bassically, and NIB are probably the best songs on the album. All of them are equally heavy, sludgy and dingy. Wicked World, the next track would set the basis for what many Black Sabbath songs would be about for a long time. This song is about politics, and the stuffy suited politicians who are mean and cruel. The 15 minute-plus track Warning/Sleeping Village is a wonderful showcase for Tony Iommi's fantastic lead guitar, and Ozzy crawling vocals. I personally think this is one of the best heavy metal albums of the 70's, and I think anyone who calls themself a metalhead should NOT be without this album.

Black Sabbath (1970.) Black Sabbath's first album.

In the late sixties, rock artists were beginning to discover a new style of music - heavy metal. Unfortunately, like rock and roll as a whole, metal was resented by many at first. Fortunately, thanks to four young lads from Birmingham, the style would be popularized. Though originally a blues rock cover band, the quartet of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward would start a rock and roll revolution. They changed their name to Black Sabbath, after a horror film they saw an ad for one day, and began shelling out classic hard rock and heavy metal. How does the band's debut album measure up? Read on, and you shall see.

The first thing I need to state is that the sound quality isn't as good on this album as it would be on future Black Sabbath albums (this is due to the conditions under which it was recorded. The band kicks things off with Black Sabbath (the song.) This is very slow, gloomy, and heavy material - the PERFECT way to start a quintessential heavy metal album. Probably the most popular track to emerge from this release was the second track - The Wizard. This is hard rock, but Ozzy plays the harmonica and adds a nice, bluesy sound. It's my favorite song on the album, too. Behind The Wall Of Sleep and N.I.B. are solid rockers that have more than stood the test of time. The final tracks on the album are nothing special (they seem like fillers compared to the other tracks), hence the rating of only four and a half stars for the album, but they are still good tracks.

On this import version of the album, the tracks aren't fused together as ultra-long medleys like they are on Warner's American pressing - you can skip right to what you want to listen to! The medley styling on the American version really pissed me off (I got sick of having to rewind and/or fast forward just to hear N.I.B.!) Another advantage to this import pressing is that Evil Woman (NOT the E.L.O. song), a track left off from the American pressing due to legal reasons, can be found here!

Black Sabbath's debut is classic hard rock/heavy metal that stands the test of time - and with good reason. It's not quite the masterpiece that the follow-up (Paranoid) would be, but still a quintessential piece of metal nonetheless. I have to recommend getting this import edition over the domestic one, due to all the reasons I listed at the bottom of the paragraph above. This album is highly recommended to fans of hard rock, heavy metal, and/or classic rock.

At first I was hesitant to get this album but when I got it... WHOA! I was used to the sounds of Slayer, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest but when I popped this CD into my stereo I was blown away.

The cover shows the direction of the album and the opening song, Black Sabbath come at you with a sort of darkness that you can't help but like. From the opening church bells to the final song on this album, we see what truly made Black Sabbath the first Heavy Metal band.

Bauhaus owe to Black Sabbath and punk. The title track "Black Sabbath," "The Wizard," and "N.I.B." are the classics. The remaining 2 tracks are well-crafted filler. This was the first gothic album ever made- like it or lump it. If you try and tell most goths that so and so heavy metal is gothic it will get dismissed because of what the genre became with hair metal, etc.