Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath – 1970
And then came Sabbath.
If ever there was a band that could be said epitomized all that was terrifying about Rock and Roll too ill informed parents, I would say, it was Sabbath. And the first strains of the first song on the first album, the band’s title song, should strike fear into the hearts and ears of the listener. It’s a rainy night, all the lights out, candles lit, seance, ouija board, conjuring the dead kind of sound.
i imagine that no one had heard anything like it at the time. I sure didn’t, when I heard it years later.
That this album was recorded in a DAY and everything was played live is astonishing.
Klosterman called it seminal, the album that begets nearly everything from Alice in Chains to Soundgarden to Queens of the Stone Age, etc.
Lester Bangs called it “like Cream, but worse.”
Divisive, yes, but I think Bangs was reacting and Klosterman is reflecting. The album holds up much better than Cream or Deep Purple. It’s urgent, sludgy and aggressive as stoner metal is supposed to be.
Song like, “N.I.B.” which comes to a crashing implosion and “Evil Woman” sound like they have been meticulously crafted. I challenge any contemporary act to go in studio and come out with something this polished and powerful. In a day.
Grade: A
ASide: Black Sabbath, N.I.B.
BlindSide: Behind the Wall of Sleep
