5/5 stars — MY NAME IS LUCIFER, PLEASE TAKE MY HAND.
This is without a doubt one of the most important albums ever made. Black Sabbath isn´t essentially a
prog rock band though, but rather the first ever true heavy metal band. They have inspired hordes of
bands ( Especially metal bands) and made some truly unique music. Wether or not you like their
primitive and raw style they are a very influential band. Other bands had made heavy albums before
this one, but no one had ever made a full album with heavy metal before. Power chord riffing
throughout the whole of the album. People didn´t really realise it at the time, but this was the birth of a
new genre: Heavy Metal.
The music is in some places inspired by blues rock but always played raw and dirty like no one else at
the time. Ozzy´s vocal lines where sharp and precise and his voice fitting the music very well. Toni
Iommi´s guitar riffs where sharp and heavy and with the wonderful rythm section of Geezer Butler on
Bass and Bill Ward on drums the band was complete. The press hated them but the audience loved
them, which meant that Black Sabbath quickly became a very big band. This was probably what
destroyed the original lineup in the end. The quick rise to fame and the temptations that followed. This
album came out in 1970 and a few years later all of the members where heavily into drugs and alcohol.
The tensions between them and their musical differences were too much for Ozzy in the end and he left
Black Sabbath to pursue a solo career. Black Sabbath has been through many incarnations since but
they have never topped those early influential albums.
On this album all was still well though and Black Sabbath made some really excellent music.
The album starts off with the extremely doomy song Black Sabbath which for most of the song consist
only of three notes played really slow with Ozzy´s chanting evil sounding vocals on top. The first ever
doom metal song. The song ends with a more uptempo riff that rocks really well. The lyrics are pretty
explicit stuff, especially for the time. Occultism and satanism. Great song, I just love it.
The next three songs are great classic Black Sabbath songs, full of heavy yet melodic riffing. Especially
N.I.B is a favorite of mine. The headline of my review is taken from the lyrics to that song. Just great
dark poetry. Don´t mistake Black Sabbath for a satanist band, they just flirt with occultism in their
lyrics.
Evil Woman is probably the weakest of the songs on the album. It´s not a bad song, but it is quite
obviously a blues cover song done the Black Sabbath way. On the US release of the album Evil Woman
is replaced by the song Wicked World. Unfortunately I haven´t heard that song because my version is
the european one.
Sleeping Village is the longest song here. 10 minutes+ and it is one of the longest Black Sabbath songs
ever. It´s full of soloing from Toni Iommi, and some jam like parts from the rythm section. This is a
real beauty if you ask me. It´s one of the best jams I have ever heard. It´s a bit out of the ordinary
for Black Sabbath though as their songs are usually pretty tightly structured.
Warning is another cover song, but it is very good and nothing like the blues inspired Evil Woman.
The sound quality is very good, and surprisingly this might be the best production of the first 4 Black
Sabbath albums. Really nice.
If you haven´t got this album you don´t love music it´s as simple as that. Black Sabbath´s second
album Paranoid is probably a little better than this their debut, but this album is certainly
not far behind. I have always loved the first two Black Sabbath albums a lot and I can´t rate this less
than 5 stars, even though the album is not progressive in the normal sense of the word. It´s very
innovative and genre defining though and that´s even more important if you ask me.
MASTERPIECE OF HEAVY METAL.
by UMUR
Search and shop for BLACK SABBATH music online:
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