Black Sabbath's heaven & hell (shit & good) of music

[drummersaredeaf]

Master of reality and SBS have always been my two favourite even though the first 6 have genre-creating/defining moments throughout. MoR and Paranoid very similar in tone, but MoR just seems better somehow. Both bangers. Just popped Spiral Architect on. Thinner sounding record, bit more proggy, lots to enjoy throughout.

Sabotage is definitely my least listened to of the lot. But when I think of that record I think of Hole in the Sky and Symptom of the Universe - huge riffs, and a leap in heaviness. Symptom of the Universe is almost like a response to a dare to play just root and b5 power chords.

Go wreck your living room to that!

[Capt.Midnight]

The guitar solo towards the end of Heaven and Hell was a surprising high point for me. One of Iommi's best lead solos in my opinion.

[madhair60]

Dio is great

[The Mollusk]

In terms of their output in Sabbath, Dio is like an evil pantomime wizard mugging to the audience and wringing his hands menacingly whereas Ozzy is more of an actual real life person who believes he's unwittingly accessed dark magic abilities that only he can see and his mates are all a bit worried about him. Both have merit but the former has no appeal to me.

[iamcoop]

I think Heaven and Hell is a great heavy metal album but I never really feel like I'm listening to Sabbath when I play it. If I think to myself "Oh I'll listen to some Sabbath today" then my mind won't really include that album when thinking about what to play. But I'll quite often be in a heavy music mood and think "Oh yeah, might give Heaven and Hell a spin today." If that makes sense in any way.

As for Sabbath surely everything up to and including Sabotage is essential right? If anything it's the first album I listen to the least. Title track and N.I.B aside it's really just a blues band finding their feet. I think Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is probably my favourite of theirs but Master of Reality is pretty fucking flawless as well. Imagine listening to that at the time of its release! Must have blown fuckin' minds.

[sevendaughters]

NIB is probably their finest few minutes. Middle just takes off, new astral plane stuff. Shame they were happy with lumpen riffs later on.

[ASFTSN]

Symptom of the Universe is almost like a response to a dare to play just root and b5 power chords.

Go wreck your living room to that!

World's first thrash riff.

[Goldentony]

Vol 4 has to be one of the few good pieces of art influenced by cocaine use.

[thugler]

BLACK SABBATH 5/5
PARANOID 4/5
MASTER OF REALITY 5/5
VOL 4 3/5
SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH 3/5
SABOTAGE 3/5
TECHNICAL ECSTASY 0/5
NEVER SAY DIE!! 2.5/5
HEAVEN & HELL 2.5/5
MOB RULES - 2.5/5
BORN AGAIN 0
SEVENTH STAR - Never heard
ETERNAL IDOL Never heard
HEADLESS CROSS Never heard
TYR - Never heard
DEHUMANIZER 3/5 underrated
CROSS PURPOSES - never heard
FORBIDDEN - never heard
13 2/5 acceptable

[idunnosomename]

Technical Ecstasy isn't worth a 0, it's not St Anger, but it's not what anyone wanted... but it's kinda fun at times. like, Air Dance is good. but it shows along with Never Say Die they couldn't keep continuing on their same course and needed to get rid of Ozzy and shake stuff up.

the Dio albums are awesome and kinda unique at the time, really building on the incredible stuff he did with Blackmore in Rainbow.

Born Again sounds like ass but it has some good dark-and-heavy-as-fuck songs like Zero the Hero and Disturbing the Priest, but the dynamic with Gillian was never great

Seventh Star isn't great, but it was just meant to be an Iommi solo album, if you take it as that it's really fun.

Eternal Idol, Headless Cross, Tyr: you either like 'em or you don't. Nightmare, When Death Calls, The Sabbath Stones are some of my absolute favourites. fucking MASSIVE.

Dehumanizer has the intro to Master of Insanity which is nearly death metal for how dissonant it is, fuckin hell. great album

Cross Purposes is really solid and generally very well liked. It has Geezer on too.

Forbidden, as I say, is the album its ok to hate, as everyone who worked on it hated it. hey actually though, it's good. title track and Kiss of Death really great finale ("Nothing you can do will hurt me, I am indestructible").

i hate 13 though. terrible

[iamcoop]

i hate 13 though. terrible

Completely forgot that this existed.

[thugler]

Technical Ecstasy isn't worth a 0, it's not St Anger, but it's not what anyone wanted... but it's kinda fun at times. like, Air Dance is good. but it shows along with Never Say Die they couldn't keep continuing on their same course and needed to get rid of Ozzy and shake stuff up.

the Dio albums are awesome and kinda unique at the time, really building on the incredible stuff he did with Blackmore in Rainbow.

Born Again sounds like ass but it has some good dark-and-heavy-as-fuck songs like Zero the Hero and Disturbing the Priest, but the dynamic with Gillian was never great

Seventh Star isn't great, but it was just meant to be an Iommi solo album, if you take it as that it's really fun.

Eternal Idol, Headless Cross, Tyr: you either like 'em or you don't. Nightmare, When Death Calls, The Sabbath Stones are some of my absolute favourites. fucking MASSIVE.

Dehumanizer has the intro to Master of Insanity which is nearly death metal for how dissonant it is, fuckin hell. great album

Cross Purposes is really solid and generally very well liked. It has Geezer on too.

Forbidden, as I say, is the album its ok to hate, as everyone who worked on it hated it. hey actually though, it's good. title track and Kiss of Death really great finale ("Nothing you can do will hurt me, I am indestructible").

i hate 13 though. terrible

You probably have a point on Technical Ecstacy, I just hate the stupid fucking cover and think it's the worst of the ozzy stuff so I probably rate it lower than it deserves.

Re: Dehumanizer, I feel like this was just a bit unlucky with being released in 1992, when sabbath/dio style metal was very out of fashion. It's so heavy.

Might give cross purposes a go

[The Mollusk]

I've had a full listen to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage now and I have some reservations about this stuff. Volume 4 and Master of Reality are the pinnacle of the band's raw abilities, in my opinion, and when they reach SBS and Sabotage they become accomplished almost to a fault. I just don't care as much for the fullness of the sound or the fact that Ozzy's vocals are on peak form at this stage; despite how epic and tight the compositions are here, there's a degree of classic rock pomp and swagger to it that strips some of the the fun away.

I need to give them more time to sink in but I think I got more out of Sabotage than SBS. My opinion might be skewed though, on account of finding Who Are You? to be fucking awful. Ridiculous creepy bad guy ominous synths, just was not into it at all.

[ASFTSN]

^ I kind of got the impression you'd already decided that from your initial post before you heard them. I don't hear any swagger at all on SBS myself, it's groovy, creepy, dark and weird. Fair play though each to their own and I would say that, it's probably the one I pick when I have the conversation about which my favourite Sabbath album is for the 3237524th time.

I have a friend who swears by the Tony Martin stuff, need to dig in as I really like what little I've heard.

EDIT: OI MOLLUSK are you a Pentagram fan?

[ASFTSN]

Imagine fucking hearing the riff at around 3.20 in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in 1973, must have been brain crushing for those smoked out rockers.

YOU BASTARDS!!!

[Dirty Boy]

There's deffo a wider range of sounds on SBS and it's noticably not the same caveman clubbing and droning riffage you get on the first three (especially MOR). Spiral Architect isn't something they would have attempted earlier on i don't think. Doesn't Rick Wakeman turn up on it somewhere?

I thought Who Are You was awful when i first heard it too, but now i really like it! Might just be down to how incongruous and creepy it is, i think that's Ozzy fucking about on synth.  I like that they were trying different things.

I found that cover really disturbing/arousing when i was a kid as well.

The Writ from Sabotage is immense, but i already said that.

[thugler]

There's deffo a wider range of sounds on SBS and it's noticably not the same caveman clubbing and droning riffage you get on the first three (especially MOR). Spiral Architect isn't something they would have attempted earlier on i don't think. Doesn't Rick Wakeman turn up on it somewhere?

I thought Who Are You was awful when i first heard it too, but now i really like it! Might just be down to how incongruous and creepy it is, i think that's Ozzy fucking about on synth.  I like that they were trying different things.

I found that cover really disturbing/arousing when i was a kid as well.

The Writ from Sabotage is immense, but i already said that.

The caveman clubbing and riffage is largely my bag with sabbath though. Supernaut is my favourite song of theirs, absolutely slaps

The weird more expansive stuff is alright, but sounds very cocaine and too much money to spend.

[The Mollusk]

^ I kind of got the impression you'd already decided that from your initial post before you heard them. I don't hear any swagger at all on SBS myself, it's groovy, creepy, dark and weird. Fair play though each to their own and I would say that, it's probably the one I pick when I have the conversation about which my favourite Sabbath album is for the 3237524th time.

I have a friend who swears by the Tony Martin stuff, need to dig in as I really like what little I've heard.

EDIT: OI MOLLUSK are you a Pentagram fan?

Nah, I definitely hadn't decided already. I will try to remain as objective as possible when listening to anything (even Phil Minton) but I knows what I likes. I heartily concur with thugler's comment above. I did very much enjoy Sabotage, despite it not typically being what I would go to Sabbath to hear. But I could easily transition into it if I was having a binge of their stuff and I appreciate that it exists.

I've never given Pentagram any time, to be fair. Someone told me years ago that they had a couple of good albums but quickly went shite. I went to a gig of theirs once as Church of Misery were supporting, so I thought it would be a good chance to see a band I admired a lot and get introduced to Pentagram, but they were fucking dreadful! Like, Spinal Tap's Stonehenge levels of bad. We left the gig about three songs into their set, and we weren't the only ones. It was pissing it down with rain but people were leaving in droves.

Anyway, that was obviously quite late into their career. Are they good?

[ASFTSN]

I've never given Pentagram any time, to be fair.

Anyway, that was obviously quite late into their career. Are they good?

Rather than wishing that Ozzy had stuck with Sabbath, I strongly suggest you check out their first three albums. Sure Bobby Liebling turned out to be a complete abusive drugged out PoS, but those first few recordings are pure evil akin to what you said you liked about early Sabbath. Get your ears around this.

[The Mollusk]

Shit, I was thinking of a totally different band with that gig anecdote! It was Cathedral, hahaha. Sorry.

That tune's great though, cheers!

[gilbertharding]

This post will be impossible to answer but:

A few months ago I was decorating the spare room, listening to The Huey Show on 6 Music and he played a Black Sabbath tune. What was the title? I checked the website, but they don't list the tracks for some reason...

Anyway, to narrow it down, I think Ozzy was singing, it sounded quite mellow, tuneful and poppy until it went all heavy and doomy 3/4ths of the way through.

I'm not going to listen to more Black Sabbath than I have to, so unless someone can help me narrow it down I'm happy never to know.

[thugler]

This post will be impossible to answer but:

A few months ago I was decorating the spare room, listening to The Huey Show on 6 Music and he played a Black Sabbath tune. What was the title? I checked the website, but they don't list the tracks for some reason...

Anyway, to narrow it down, I think Ozzy was singing, it sounded quite mellow, tuneful and poppy until it went all heavy and doomy 3/4ths of the way through.

I'm not going to listen to more Black Sabbath than I have to, so unless someone can help me narrow it down I'm happy never to know.

Looking for today?

[Pink Gregory]

My opinion might be skewed though, on account of finding Who Are You? to be fucking awful. Ridiculous creepy bad guy ominous synths, just was not into it at all.

Try listening to the cover by the band Goatsnake and then going back to the Sabs original.  Convinced me anyway.

[The Mollusk]

Try listening to the cover by the band Goatsnake and then going back to the Sabs original.  Convinced me anyway.

Extremely weird coincidence, I actually discovered Goatsnake for the first time today and listened to I + Dog Days on a 3-mile walk to see my friend. I saw the track title and wondered if it would be a cover but I reached my destination two songs before it and turned it off! Listened to High On Fire all the way walking home so I'm pretty much sludged our for today, but I'll remember to go back to it. Probably.

[ASFTSN]

Goatsnake, High on Fire, walking...are you me c.2002?

[The Mollusk]

Nah I'm just too skint to take the tube! Close call though. I was almost you.

[gilbertharding]

Looking for today?

Thanks, but apparently not.

Seemingly it was Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after all! An amazing track - can't believe I haven't knowingly heard it before. As someone else said: that riff in the second half is just evil.

[thugler]

Thanks, but apparently not.

Seemingly it was Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after all! An amazing track - can't believe I haven't knowingly heard it before. As someone else said: that riff in the second half is just evil.

Haha! I did think of this but thought 'tuneful and poppy' at the beginning was a bit of an overstatement. That riff is lovely.

[gilbertharding]

Tuneful and poppy was how I remembered it... and it's all relative. Compared to the absolute HONKER of the second half, the first half is virtually Eurovision.

[boki]

Tuneful and poppy was how I remembered it... and it's all relative. Compared to the absolute HONKER of the second half, the first half is virtually Eurovision.

There is absolutely no way that it wasn't an influence on Abba's Lay All Your Love On Me.  Every Swedish person has at least a bit of a metal phase, so it totally checks out.