Black Sabbath - An In-Depth Look
BLACK SABBATH (an in-depth look)
In this edition of The BANGERS Method, we’re going to take a look at what are pretty much the original, and certainly to a lot of people the best, of the heavy metal bands, Black Sabbath. It’s practically impossible to quantify just how influential and important they are to any band that makes heavy music, let alone the listener. Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne are all vital components to the band, and without their individual contributions, it would be a very different musical world. Everybody knows the big songs, staples of modern Rock radio and almost ever present soundtrack to anyone that grew up being into metal, but when you’re looking the album as an art form, how do they stack up?
There are essentially three bands called Black Sabbath,
1970-79, 2012-15: The Ozzy years
1979-82, 1990-92, 2006-09: The Dio years
1983-90, 1993-1997: The wilderness years
For this BANGERS ranking, we’re going to look at the Ozzy era specifically, as the three incarnations are essentially different bands with a different sound, so it’s hard to rank them together. Ozzy didn’t sing the Dio songs, Dio didn’t sing the Ozzy songs, nobody sang poor old Tony Martin’s ones. There will be an article about the for Dio records at a later date however.
As before, we’ll start with the worst one first, and then work up to the best album. Scoring again is as per the BANGERS method, which is outlined right here..
9. Never Say Die! [1978]
BANGERS Rating: 0.000
Just a band that has completely given up on artistry, 12 bar blues aping nonsense, stinking of the desperation of commercial pop success. They’re half a step away from banging out a Christmas song and touring with Mud at this point. Weird keyboard parts, terrible production and general malaise all round. Junior’s Eyes has a great bass line, a real groove, but in a Sabbath song? It’s just a terrible fit. Hard Road is a real turd, everybody sounds bored. Finally, Iommi kills it on Shockwave, but everything else lets the song down to the point it becomes “generic NWOBHM song #27”, and then Air Dance comes along, sounding like the worst YouTube mash up of Santana and David Helfgott that you could possibly imagine. If this has Rob Thomas on it, it would be a new late night sex jam for the forever alone, but as it is, you just get this bollocks. The last two minutes alone could send this album to the bin, let alone the other 8 songs. Over To You sounds like someone put a Van Halen record on the wrong speed, Breakout is a borderline joke and then Bill Ward pulls out his best (worst?) Hendrix impression to match the uninspired wankery that is Swinging The Chain whilst Ozzy was presumably eating Colombia in the toilets. Thank fuck for Dio, eh?
8. Technical Ecstasy [1976]
Oh dear. If this was the first time you’d ever listened to the band you’d probably wonder what all the fuss was about. Iommi’s guitar tone is absolutely awful as well. You Won’t Change Me starts off like a blast of pure Sabbath, but rapidly descends into self-parody and honestly feels an hour long. Remember that band Meatloaf mentions in Wayne’s World, The Shitty Beatles? It’s Alright is EXACTLY what I imagine they sound like. Fair play to Bill Ward on vocals though, puts in more of an effort than Ozzy does on the rest of the album. Gypsy is just a Deep Purple rip off and then Rock n Roll Doctor rips off KISS with added honky tonk nonsense. What is going on? She’s Gone, All Moving Parts and Back Street Kids are all completely forgettable, but album closer Dirty Women is at least memorable for some solid instrumental bits. On the whole, completely dire.
7. 13 [2013]
BANGERS Rating: 0.375
After 17 different farewell tours, the band finally reconvened to finish some actual recording and bring out their first album with the original line up since 1978… and then Bill Ward changed his mind after a “contractual dispute”. The band drafted in Brad Wilk from RATM / Audioslave to fill in for the recording, but it’s not the best fit. Who knows why they didn’t use Vinny Appice, maybe he was too much of Dio’s guy than Ozzy’s, maybe it was Rick Rubin, who knows. The wonderful world of managers and politics. Anyway, missed opportunities aside, on with the music…
13 is not a bad record, and it’s certainly miles better than Technical Ecstasy or Never Say Die, but it’s lacking something to give it that edge and make it a classic. End Of The Beginning is a solid start to the record, straight into a chunky riff not a million miles away from the classic Black Sabbath, and the classic guitar tones are there straight away. Got to give dues to Ozzy as well, this is the best he’s sounded in years. It’s a good Sabbath song, with some excellent guitar work from Iommi. God Is Dead is another track that seems to be calling back to older material, in this case War Pigs. This is my biggest issue with the record, a lot of it is reductive and bordering onto almost a parody of their acclaimed sound. The track again is good, it’s got a tight rhythm section, but you’ve got to feel that maybe Ward would have given it a bit more elegance and restraint, you can almost feel Wilk chomping at the bit to drum hard. Loner is a bit forgettable, with a N.I.B-lite riff, nothing that’s going to blow your socks off, and then Zeitgeist comes along to bore you to tears. It’s just a bad Planet Caravan, pulling out that kind of Spanish vibe that they always do so cack handedly. Generic “Stoners In Space” lyrics, Ozzy pulling off his best Dave Gilmour impression and boring gap-year-in-Panama bongos means it probably appeals to dudes that look like Newton Faulkner, but for everybody else it’s a bit of a turd.To stop you nodding off, Age of Reason pumps the life back in to the record with another solid album track, but again, it’s very reductive and “classic Sabbath” by the numbers. Give Iommi his dues though, he is killing it on this record, technique wise. Live Forever is the biggest victim by far of the Rubin effect though, it sounds AWFUL. There’s sounding “raw”, and there’s sounding like you haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re doing, and this is definitely in the latter. It’s clipped all over the place, compressed to fuck, and the drums and bass tones are completely lost. It makes Death Magnetic sound like a Steven Wilson master in comparison. Something sounds off with Ozzy as well, it’s like he’s reading the lyrics, and he’s doing about a good a job hiding it as I did on my GCSE French oral exam. Damaged Soul is an good song let down by the way it’s mixed, it does go on a bit too long, but it does it’s job, which is to give you the big Sabbath guitar stomper with a bit of harmonica for people that love The Wizard, letting the album build up to the riff fest that is Dear Father. We’re talking riffs on riffs on riffs here, it’s got a real dirtiness to the verses and the bridge, and there’s a lot of anger in the lyrics, giving the whole track a darkness that’s been lacking on the rest of the album. The ending is a lovely callback to the first album as well, bookending the career of the band. The album is worth a listen, it’s not damaged their legacy at all, but nobody is going to be adding it to the pantheon of the first four or helping their kids discover it in twenty years.
6. Sabotage [1975]
BANGERS Rating: 0.438
Before we get to the music, honestly, this is one of the worst album covers of all time. I mean fuck me, just look at Bill Ward’s legs! Anyway, thankfully the music is an improvement, and the album starts off with Hole In The Sky, a Zeppelin-esque slab of bluesy rock with a great groove thanks to the restrained drum work of Ward under a driving bass line, which is one of the highlights of the record. After an Spanish style acoustic number, it segues into the phenomenal Symptom of the Universe, probably the best song they would write for the remainder of their career. Is it thrash? Is it sludge? It’s definitely influenced bands like Melvins (Honey Bucket) and Sepultura, and is easily up there with the bands strongest material. Megalomania takes it down a notch, with that otherworldly dark mood just pouring out of the speakers, building emphasis on the subjects mental decline before again dropping into just solid grooves, with Iommi in particular killing it, laying down solo after solo. Unfortunately, from here on out the album starts to unravel. The Thrill Of It All is solid, but ultimately throwaway, Supertzar is more out of place than Ian Gillen, Am I Going Insane might have well been titled I Am Going Inane and The Writ is a jumbled mess. Ozzy isn’t a song writer, and it’s clear from this track why Butler wrote all the lyrics. There’s a lot to like on this record, but the second half is entirely skippable. Buy a cheap copy on vinyl, but only ever listen to Side A.
5. Vol. 4 [1972]
BANGERS Rating: 0.500
Notable tracks (BANGERS are bold) - 4/10: Tomorrow's Dream, Supernaut, Snowblind, Cornucopia
There’s two schools of thought with this album, one is that it’s the last truly great Sabbath album, coming at the tail end of them banging out four stellar albums in TWO years, and that the resulting time spent on the follow up, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, although still rapid by modern standards, slightly killed the magic, or that the slightly more experimental nature of this one leads into a better follow up. I’m in the second camp, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is a better record than Vol. 4, but that is no way a slight on this album, this is still a great album.
FX is a load of old bollocks, just 4 coked up dudes being fascinated by the weird noise a guitar makes and then deciding, for some inexplicable reason, to put it on the album. I used to make bad noise records in my bedroom with a broken guitar, and even I would have deleted this. Thankfully they have a moment of clarity, and that’s where Supernaut comes in. What a bloody song. Over an absolutely crunching, almost danceable riff, Ozzy is at his most unhinged just wailing on a drug fuelled odyssey through his mind. The song has no chorus, just flying through at a frantic pace, and underpinning it all is one of the most amazing drum performances in any record from this period. Bill Ward absolutely kills it, bringing an almost funk vibe to it, heavy on the cymbals, leaning into the rhythm HARD. And as for that solo break? Bloody hell. Considering, based on all accounts, he was very much deep in the abyss of drink and drugs during the recording of this album, the sound of this track is so fresh and alive, you have to wonder what it would have sounded like if he wasn’t! Drugs are a huge part of this album, supposedly the band were going through absolutely kilos of the stuff, like Tony Montana that went to San Francisco rather than Miami, and Snowblind is the central point of this.
The song is literally a love letter to the white stuff, an ode to the increased perception and performance they feel it gives them, it’s one of the quintessential Sabbath songs of this experimental period. Iommi’s solo is rife in imagery, you can almost feel it as the guitar equivalent of that initial high. Cornucopia puts the band back in familiar territory, dirge laden riffs over lyrics commenting on the state of society, taking aim with western cultures lack of care around the lives of others to get what they want. Slightly ironic, seeing how they were probably funding half a cartel at this point, but a great song nonetheless. Laguna Sunrise is another in the “Black Sabbath does Latin instrumentals” series, and adds nothing really. St. Vitus’ Dance is a weird one. It’s a very jaunty number, with Butler (via Ozzy) lamenting his friend ending a relationship for the wrong reasons, and the whole song gives off a Physical Graffiti Led Zeppelin vibe. For some reason, the song just stops dead, maybe hammering home the point of realisation for the character, or maybe just because they didn’t know how to finish it. Either way, it’s quite a jarring stop.
Under The Sun closes the album out, a song pushing back against the moral arbiters of the age, with Ozzy stating he doesn’t want Jesus or “black magicians”, he just wants to live a life free of moral obligation, the freedom to be himself. It’s a proper headbanger of a song, with the dirtiest of down tempo intros leading into a catchy central riff, before breaking out into a high tempo solo which Iommi, as usual, kills it on. An instrumental slower section rounds out the track to finish the album in familiar territory, and whilst it’s not a Sabbath classic, it’s a good solid album track that you makes you instinctively nod your head along.
4. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath [1973]
BANGERS Rating: 0.563
The last of the great Sabbath albums, putting a full stop on the earth shattering power of the first four albums, whilst introducing elements of their later more experimental nature, with synthesisers, orchestration and lighter moments receiving more prominence than before. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is unarguably up there as one of the greatest songs they ever recorded, and the outro riff is just phenomenal. The track is also probably Ozzy’s best performance in the band, it’s the perfect Sabbath song. A National Acrobat is up next, a more groove based number, and a reflection of Butler’s growing lyrical scope as Ozzy sings from the perspective of an omnipotent figure overseeing conception. Whilst more chilled than a lot of their output, it’s a great song, and like a lot of Sabbath’s work, the bass line is a particular highlight.
Fluff is the first filler track on the record. It’s a lovely instrumental, but it’s certainly not a track you’d listen to out of context of its place on the album. Sabbra Cadabra is up next, with its playful blues riff segueing into something heavier, with Yes’s Rick Wakeman adding some texture and depth with a synth part that compliments the track rather than being jarring, which is something a lot of their later efforts failed with. Killing Yourself To Live is an interesting track, an almost autobiographical track about just how fucked the band were getting at this point, either pissed or coked up 24/7, which was pretty much the beginning of the end for the band, both mentally and physically. The song is alright, but nothing particularly special. Who Are You? and Looking For Today are both forgettable, Who Are You? bordering on being a bad song. Both of the tracks just meander along, lyrically dull and uninspired, with Who Are You? coming off like Wendy Carlos doing Sgt. Pepper’s, just a disjointed mess of ideas squidged into a song.
Spiral Architect ends the rot though, a fantastic ending to the album. There’s a sense of scale with the way the track builds, and the evocative lyrics around omnipotence and creation conjure up all sorts of imagery, the large cinemascope version of life and the world in comparison to the micro scale of A National Acrobat. All in all, an absolutely solid album only really let down by Who Are You?.
2. Master of Reality [1971]
BANGERS Rating: 0.813
Notable tracks (BANGERS are bold) - 5/8: Sweet Leaf, After Forever, Children Of The Grave, Into The Void, Lord Of This World
Is this the earliest incantation of full on stoner rock? It literally opens with an ode to marijuana in Sweet Leaf and ends with the full on downtuned riff heavy tale of a dude literally blasting off into space on Into The Void. This album was what introduced the drop tuned, colossal slow riffs of what has since become a whole genre, and you can hear the genesis of bands like Kyuss, Boris and Electric Wizard, even in something like Black Flag’s My War.
Sweet Leaf opens the record majestically, with its massive central riff (nicked by Silverchair on Leave Me Out) impossible not nod along to. This is the Sabbath before Los Angeles and cocaine, four simple dudes from Birmingham getting stoned and jamming out big bluesy riffs, and it’s one of the strongest songs they ever wrote. After Forever carries on this big sound, but in juxtaposition to their perception by the general public and occultists and Satan worshippers, especially after the Paranoid suicide controversy, this is a song where Geezer Butler explores his Catholicism in a positive light. It’s a fun song, with a playful central riff masking the heavy lyrics. Children Of The Grave is a bonefide Sabbath classic, easily the best track on the record, just as heavy as anything, the sound of death and destruction on tape, as if the four horseman decided to start a band and bring the apocalypse to your speakers instead. A stunning track that never fails to get people banging their heads along, the crazy, sweeping and panning of the percussion underneath the main beat like the hooves of a thousand horses. Fuck me, it’s incredible. The track is bookended by two acoustic, almost baroque guitar pieces, Embryo and Orchid, and whilst they’re nice pieces, they are undoubtedly filler.
Lord Of This World brings the tempo back down, with Geezer Butler’s sumptuous bass line driving the groove, with the band again lamenting the state of the world, and how we’re all enveloped in a satanic embrace. It’s clear on Master of Reality that Sabbath aren’t here to hit you with blistering solos and dancey blues numbers. This a dirty, dirty album, designed for dark rooms, big speakers and clouds of smoke. There’s no crack at the charts or cares of commercial viability, it’s just a band in the studio at peak creativity. Solitude takes all the crunch out of the record, a ethereal almost ballad, with Ozzy’s vocals draped in tape delay pining for a lost love, with passionate guitar playing, sitting alongside wider instrumentation such as piano and woodwind instruments. It’s a lovely song, but it’s not a highlight in Sabbath’s catalogue in the same way that Sweet Leaf or Children of the Grave are.
Into The Void brings the album straight back in to riff territory, with Iommi laying down one of the bands most memorable riffs to open the track, before the whole band drops into solid groove territory, keeping it slow and heavy in opposition to the vocal delivery, where Ozzy almost seems to be trying to keep up with his own words, as if he’s trying to chase the rocket leaving the atmosphere. The bridge, which drops into double time, showcases some spectacular drumming from Bill Ward, before he drops out back into that heavy riff to send the listener into the cosmos with the protagonist. Even the fucking solo is slow and heavy, it’s a colossal way to end the album. Solitude aside, there’s an argument that is is Sabbath’s masterpiece, and certainly an album that’s still being felt in today’s metal scene.2. Black Sabbath [1970]
BANGERS Rating: 0.813
Notable tracks (BANGERS are bold) - 5/8: Black Sabbath, The Wizard, N.I.B, Evil Woman, Wicked World
AKA The One That Changed Everything. The influence and the impact on the world of music that this record has had is impossible to overstate. It was the genesis point for heavier music, full stop. There’s arguments that other albums were “the first” metal album or track, Blue Cheer or Iron Butterfly for example, but none of them are as influential or consistently thematic as Black Sabbath. From the terror of the title track through to the ringing note that closes Wicked World, this is an album that creates an identity, both of its performers as Black Sabbath, but also of a genre yet to be fully realised. Countless musicians have stated that this album was life changing, from classic 1980’s metal bands such as Metallica and Anthrax, 90’s grunge and stoner bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Kyuss and even more contemporary bands such as Sunn O))) and Pigs X7, and it’s influencing the music we listen to now, nearly 50 years after its release.
Out from the rain and the church bells that open Black Sabbath, three held notes introduce pure dread in the listener, the aural equivalent of the album cover, with its washed Gothic imagery evoking images of Poe, Hammer and Mario Bava. Geezer Butler’s lyrics, coming from a fevered dream of a dark figure stood at the end of his bed, set the tone of what is to come for the darker parts of the record. The Wizard, with harmonica adding a piercing tone, is a phenomenal track with Bill Ward’s drumming standing out especially, syncopated rhythms and fills sitting in the spaces left hanging. Looking more towards Tolkien than Poe, the track has a different feel than the opener, showing that there was versatility in their output, but still retaining that tone and feel. Behind The Wall of Sleep is another track in the blues based jam vein that would sit at the backbone of their style, with its drum break being sampled by a lot of hip-hop luminaries such as A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast and Inspectah Deck.
N.I.B is another famous Sabbath riff, taking the band back to the occult themes of the opener, although in this case the satanic twist isn’t revealed until the end of the final chorus, subverting what could be an ordinary love song into a fall under the power of Satan. Iommi kills it on this track, with a simple yet crushing riff, and you even get an early utterance of Osbourne’s trademark “Oh Yeah!”. Evil Woman is a bass heavy stomper that a lot of later 70’s glam bands probably owe a debt of gratitude to. Sleepy Village, probably the low point of the album, is a sparse guitar led jam, which seems to set up Warning, a ten minute plus Zeppelin-esque jam psychedelic piece that shows that the band have got some real chops musically, honed playing mammoth improvised sets in Germany at the start of their careers.
1. Paranoid [1970]
BANGERS Rating: 1.313
Notable tracks (BANGERS are bold) - 7/8: War Pigs, Paranoid, Planet Caravan, Iron Man, Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom, Fairies Wear Boots
Notable tracks (BANGERS are bold) - 7/8: War Pigs, Paranoid, Planet Caravan, Iron Man, Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom, Fairies Wear Boots
Let’s get this out of the way at the beginning. With the exception of Rat Salad, every single track on this album is essential Sabbath. War Pigs. Paranoid. Iron Man. Electric Funeral. Hand of Doom. Fairies Wear Boots. Even Planet Caravan is great, if not quite hitting the banger level. When the only track on an album that isn’t essential is a bloody drum solo, you know you’ve got something special.
If you were going to come up with what the quintessential Sabbath song, it’s going to be War Pigs. From the brooding ringing notes of Iommi’s intro, letting Butler’s bass lines fill the void in between and Bill Ward’s jazzy fills and the working class anger in Ozzy’s delivery at the injustice of young men being sent away to their deaths, through to the instrumental jam that closes out the track, it doesn’t put a foot wrong, practically setting down a stone tablet in how you write an engaging metal track.
Paranoid is unarguably the most famous Sabbath track, maybe even the most famous metal track full stop, and it’s easy to see why. A driving rhythm section gives a solid platform to fit the vocal melody on, whilst Iommi just does his thing effortlessly over the top, blending together to make Sabbath’s greatest “pop” song. Planet Caravan drops the tempo from 100 down to 1, dropping a hippie jam with hand percussion, jazzy latin style guitars and a funk bass line overlapping each other with Ozzy’s spaced out oscillated vocal drifting in and out. It really is a great song, and helps you catch your breath after the opening tracks. It’s a track they tried to write many more times over their career and they ever pulled it off as well. It’s also the only real hope in the album, a tale of drifting through space, serenity and the wonder of the universe in counterpoint to drug addiction, mental health, the business of war and nuclear apocalypse that make up the rest of the album. Iron Man is pretty much the most famous riff in metal music, anchoring a tale of a time traveller doomed to create the apocalypse he’s been sent to avert via his own rage and anger at the inhumanity of man, a theme which carries through to Electric Funeral, a dark tale of just how fucked humanity would be in the event of nuclear war, which was a very real threat in 1970.
Bill Ward’s drumming on this whole album is probably the best in their whole canon, he nails that jazzy restraint on every track, even bringing calm to the powerful parts, which is what was sorely missing with Wilk’s work on 13. Hand of Doom is another angry song, drenched in dread from the slow, foreboding bass line and the free form drum fills from the intro before changing tempos and ramming home the anti heroin message within. After a little break for a drum solo or twelve on Rat Salad, we’re back into the riffs for the album closer, Fairies Wear Boots. This is the humorous side of the band, a bad trip laid out with fairies, dwarves and the pleading that it’s the truth to a doctor that’s having none of it. It’s a cracking way to finish the album, with a simple blues riff designed for banging your head. It’s an essential album for any metal fan, but you don’t need me to tell you that.
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So, there you have it, that is my ranking of Black Sabbath’s albums that feature Ozzy's vocal talents. Let me know in the comments how you feel about it, did I get it wrong? Have I overlooked a gem of a song? If you want to send me your own scores, please do, you can find the template here, send them over to me at thebangersmethod@gmail.com and I’ll add them to the blog post, or get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @bangersmethod
All of the tracks mentioned as notable above have been compiled as a Spotify playlist, and you can find that here too, and this is how the notable tracks are split across the bands discography
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