Customer Reviews

Black Sabbath (Deluxe Edition)

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

 

 

I have been a little slow picking up my Sabbath deluxe editions. Finally got this one for Christmas. What can I say? It was worth the wait. The most iconic metal album of all time has been given the deluxe edition treatment, and deservedly so.

First of all, before I talk about the music, this edition just looks beautiful in its digipack. The scariest most haunting album cover of all time is printed crisply on cardboard and it looks amazing. Open it up to find photos of a hippy-dippy looking Black Sabbath, just a bunch of kids. The booklet inside has truly great liner notes and more photos of the young foursome. There is one photo of Oz playing keyboards in the studio -- strange none of his keys show up on this album. I'd love to know the story behind that photo.

Musically, of course this album is incredible. Simple, sparse, raw, and haunting. This is the kind of music that can only be made by four guys psychicly locked-in with each other, knowing what notes are coming next, anticipating them and reacting to them. Bill Ward's drumming is thrifty and wonderful, perfectly off-time and magically working with Geezer Butler's fluidic basslines. Geezer's bass, in turn, is locked in with Iommi's guitar, providing melodic accents while Tony plays the rock solid demonic riffs from hell. Meanwhile, Ozzy is on top of it all, a man possessed, his words ringing loud and powerfully along within the spaces of the songs. This is the kind of album that can only be created by four guys playing live in a room together. Modern bands cannot do this kind of album.

Every song is, of course, a classic, from the opening thunder of "Black Sabbath" to the wallowing solos of "Warning" and the haunting "Sleeping Village". "N.I.B." has one of the catchiest bass intros of all time, amp hum buzzing away in the background as you can hear Geezer's fingers pluck away. Truly, a classic album, all killer no filler.

And no wonder. The band was tight, playing these songs night after night after night until they had them down pat. I once read that Sabbath were doing 8 sets, 45 minutes each, in the bars each gig. That makes you a tight band, and the bonus disc proves this. Alternate takes of key tracks on the second disc prove that the band had these songs down to a fine science. Casual fans won't even be able to pick up on the differences, they are so tight. The biggest difference is in the alternate take of "Evil Woman". Flutes? Methinks Tony still had a bit too much Jethro Tull in his system.

There are also some instrumentals with the vocal tracks stripped off. These are interesting from an analytical point of view. The title track really allows you to hear the instruments playing against each other, Tony's guitar puking mounds of distortion all over the tapes.

Lastly you get both "Wicked World" and "Evil Woman". Depending on where you lived, one track was subbed for the other on the original album and the first CD issues. All later remasters of this album contained both songs, including this one.

Interestingly, the demos that Ozzy released on his own Ozzman Cometh compilation are not included here. Pick that album up as well for some very rough early versions of some of these tracks, with different lyrics as well.

5 stars. Every metal fan in the world needs this album, absolutely no excuses.

The darkness of this album truely demonstrates the powerfull influence that Black Sabbath has had on the music industry! Just great!

This record is fantastic!! Hard to believe it was released in 1970...sounds great! Bill Ward's drum fill at 0:51 of Wicked World always gets me

Yes, you read the subject to this review right. This is the best Black Sabbath album. I didn't used to think this, but when I listened to it again a couple of months ago, I realized how awesome this album really is. The guitar is great, the bass is solid, the drums are furiously played, and Ozzy's vocals are haunting. The album starts with none other than "Black Sabbath". Is there any better way to start off an album than this song? The rain fades in, then the thunder and the distant sound of a bell, and then BOOM! HEAVY METAL IS BORN. The riff itself is very simple, yet so very evil. Our first chance to hear Ozzy is a spooky one to be sure. He sounds like Satan himself in this song. The climax is also one of music's great moments, with that awesome riff and the superb guitar solo by Tony Iommi. The next song is another classic. "The Wizard". Sure, the lyrics are nothing special, but that's not why I listen to Sabbath. The harmonica playing by Ozzy is great in this bluesy-metal song. Bill Ward's drumming is wonderful. You'll be banging your head hard to this one. The next track has four songs on it, which I think was a cool idea. "WASP" is the short rocking intro to "Behind The Wall Of Sleep". Once the intro is over, a really cool riff is played and Ozzy's vocals come in. This song is yet another classic. The middle section is great, with Ozzy saying "Like a body to a corpse" over and over. Bill Ward's drum beat fades out as Geezer Butler's bass solo "Bassically" fades in. Neat effect. The bass solo is very enjoyable, and when it ends, an incredibly distorted bass riff starts "N.I.B." which is one of heavy metal's greatest songs, along with one of heavy metal's greatest riffs. There's not a single part of this song that I don't enjoy. I love the guitar solos from Iommi, especially the one at the end. I also love the chorus when it gets quiet and Ozzy goes "I'm going to feeeeeeeeel" and then that heavy riff comes in again. AWESOME. The next song is "Wicked World", which is probably the weakest song on the album, although it's still awesome as hell. The riff is great, and the lyrics are neat. Iommi's guitar solo is great. The last track has three songs, although I don't know where "A Bit Of Finger" takes place. The beginning short song is "Sleeping Village" with it's dark acoustic riff. This is a really cool song, and I wish it was longer. Then as soon as that ends, "Warning" begins with a strong guitar riff. From there, there's a bunch of cool riffs for a while until the song slows down into the verse portion of the song. This is a cover tune so I can't credit any of the band for the awesome lyrics, but Ozzy does a great job of singing in this one. The last quarter of the song ( this song is 14 minutes, by the way ) is a bunch of guitar playing, including a 2 minute guitar solo by Iommi where he's the only one playing. Then the song goes back to one final verse and then it ends. There it is... An all-time classic album. Buy it, NOW!

Some nice jamming on this album, great guitar playing. The songs are decent enough...i would say this is better than vol4 but not as good as sabbath bloody sabbath. There ya go. Thanks

I love this album more than ever with it's new quiet sounding background & killer vocals. It still has that powerful dynamic Rock sound with just a bit of the early 70's compression at the beginning. One of the best rock remasters.

Who could have predicted what Black Sabbath would create with their debut album? I don't think the band themselves knew exactly what they created at the time but it became the foundation of their career and of a musical genre. In 1970 this dark, blues-heavy sound on which metal must have been scary to a load of people! It must have been hard to imagine something this heavy back then, it was a sort of rock'n'roll revolution in a way. And what about that album cover? It used to scare me when I was younger and I still get chills to this day when I look at the artwork. For some fans of the ban this is the definitive Black Sabbath album, after all this is where the sound of metal was really developed and when the sound of evil (as it has often been referred to) was born.

Black Sabbath opens with the title track which was the first song the band wrote, ultimately it became their inspiration and they based their sound on this one track. It's an epic song that's freaky, sets the tone for not only the album but the band's whole career. The Wizard is the shortest song here, I love how the harmonica intro and how this heavy, bluesy and distorted riff kicks in right after. It's the shortest song on the album but it's a classic song, simply amazing. N.I.B has perhaps the greatest bass intro to a song ever; it's a highlight for sure. I could go on but these songs are classic and very good in their own way, Sabbath's debut should be memorable for every metalhead.

If you're a big fan I would suggest getting the deluxe edition of Black Sabbath which has an extra disc of unreleased stuff like alternate takes, instrumentals and such . The deluxe edition would be perfect for a hardcore fan.

Bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Deep Purple and Blue Cheer had a heavy sound but there something very different with Black Sabbath's debut, up to that point none of it had been THIS heavy. To add to their sound the band made occult references was another type of heavy. And guess what? It still sounds great even today. Black Sabbath's debut is very much the birthplace of metal, some bands before Sabbath had heavy elements to them but none of them were as heavy as Sabbath was. If you're a fan of metal/heavy metal whatever you want to call it you need this album to understand it's significance and influence on the genre. It's been more than 40 years but this album is still incredible and it still gives me chills, got to love it! 5/5

Black Sabbath's debut album is given over to lengthy songs and suite-like pieces where individual songs blur together and riffs pound away one after another, frequently under extended jams. There isn't much variety in tempo, mood, or the band's simple, blues-derived musical vocabulary, but that's not the point; Sabbath's slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness. Songs like the apocalyptic title track, "N.I.B.," and "The Wizard" make their obsessions with evil and black magic seem like more than just stereotypical heavy metal posturing because of the dim, suffocating musical atmosphere the band frames them in. This blueprint would be refined and occasionally elaborated upon over the band's next few albums, but there are plenty of metal classics already here

Black Sabbath's first album is an excellent first effort. One of their best albums, each of the tracks offers up an excellent slice of each of the member's talents. Granted this isn't the pounding style of Paranoid, it is a very different flavored album. Not my favorite Sabbath album, but it definitely comes up there in my personal top five for the band.

BALCK SABBATH, the album started the legacy of one of heavy metal's legendary bands, Black Sabbath. I remember listening to this album for the first time. The title track scared the living hell out of me. BLACK SABBATH is the complete antithesis of the free love & hippie movement that was going on in the late 60s-early 70s. No one has ever played this heavy at that time. Led Zeppelin laid the groundwork of heavy metal, but Sabbath put the EVIL touch of darkness that would be synonymous with heavy metal in the years to come.

Ozzy Osbourne was never a great vocalist, but his vocals were perfect for the music that Black Sabbath played. What he lacked in technical ability as a singer, he made up for it in attitude. Tony Iommi's guitar would send chills down your spine particularly in the song "A Bit of Finger". It's as if the gates of hell was opened & a scream from hell emananted from the very depths of hell itself. Geezer Butler's bass is superb & influential.

You wanna start out listening to Sabbath, this is the perfect album to start out.