AR: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)

The legend of Black Sabbath has always been a bit hazy for me. As I've referenced numerous times, Mr. Osbourne relieved himself on the Alamo* in 1982 and was banned from San Antonio** for some ten years, and I'm pretty sure he and Sabbath were consequently largely absent from my 1980s classic rock radio education. SA may love it some long-haired metal music, but it will not tolerate monumental micturation. Ozzy was more or less forgiven and invited back to perform somewhere around 1992, and some of the big hits ("Paranoid," "Iron Man,""Crazy Train") were certainly welcomed back to the airwaves. Still, a healthy part of the BS and OO oeuvres were absent from the KZEP-geist. So I figured out WAY after the fact (I mean, after "Mama I'm Coning Home" and "No More Tears," which, come to think of it, must have been the tour that got him back in SA's good graces) that this was pretty much the British grandfather band of metal. Their early catalog in particular is 17 kinds of dark, intense and powerful, the riffs are earth-shaking, and Ozzy is an insanely talented frontman. Woe unto thee who know only the drunken mind-wrecked clown on MTV; Ozzy was one scary, powerful dude, and Black Sabbath is listed by pretty much every scary, guitar-shredding metal legend as *the* seminal metal band.

* - Well, it was across the street on a monument commemorating the Alamo, but still.

** - Note: Not "banned from performing in San Antonio," but "banned from San Antonio." What kind of crazy Wild West @#$% is that? "I'm gonna let you ride your horse out of town, pardner, but don't you ever set foot in Bexar again... or else!" This was actually a huge deal in SA as you can imagine, though all I remember is that Ozzy Osbourne was sort of a scapegoat for all that is evil about rock and/or roll. I am sure my Episcopalean pastor-types had loads to say about OO and the occult. Suffice it: Ozzy ='ed BAD, and it's no surprise that his mid-'70s work got sort of deleted from the FM history books.

I know Black Sabbath best from Paranoid, their sublime 1970 LP that leads off with "War Pigs" and kills for 42 minutes straight. We'll leave that review for another day, but the point is that via that heavier-than-heavy album, I've always associated Black Sabbath with a dark, moldy castle dungeon brand of proto-metal. The three years between that album and this one did not leave the band stagnant - they play metal on this disc (this is frequently listed as a "metal masterpiece"), but ladies and gents, things have turned and this is a *prog*-metal album. Or at least a significant step in that direction. They already had a penchant for extended songs and face-melting guitar-work, even the occasional baroque mood-piece. But here, much more than previously, the songs are multi-sectioned, themed compositions that do not retreat from the dramatic - pianos, strings, overwrought synths, all manage to back Ozzy's wail.

Instead of just slaying faces with its signature riff, the titular album opener alternates between a grinding overdriven guitar section and a pretty, major-7 chorded, almost hippie-sounding acoustic chunk. In lieu of a final alternation into happy-land, the song takes a left turn into a bassed out grumbling new riff that might as well share DNA with every Pantera-breakdown segment. Really, dirty-heavy stuff. "A National Acrobat" continues this trend, opting for more multi-riffed sections that are so varied as to make it difficult to remember which excellent part of the song you're in. "ANA" in particular features astounding interplay from a multi-tracked Ozzy and an off the charts syncopated lead chunky riff. Badass stuff. Of course, this ADD style can't hack it for long, and the last two minutes of the song are dedicated to a very major key, honey-dripped sunshine riff that is as much of a departure from the "Iron Man" riff as I can imagine. Plenty of shreddage in these opening two tracks; the equally epic / great and stylistically similar "Killing Yourself to Live" appears later on the album, and these three are probably the closest to strict guitar metal the disc has to offer.

Other songs depart much more from that earlier BS sound. "Fluff" is an acoustic and piano and, I don't know, harp/harpsichord (?) ballad that sticks out sharply from the other material. It sounds like an homage to similar tracks on Surrealistic Pillow, which is precisely the last thing I would have expected from the most evil band in the land. "Sabba Cadabra" is a boogie-number that drops into a piano-backed and synthesizer-tinged section that anticipates a lot of G'n'R Illusion stuff; again, good, energetic stuff, some of my favorite kind of multi-instrument controlled chaos, but not in the expected mood. "Spiral Architext" takes all of these elements - the brighter sound, the multiple composed sections, the general grandeur - and adds strings on top of that! It's actually quite well executed, and while the only thing raw that's left is the scratch in the lead vocals, this still represents an interesting departure for the band that represents a real willingness to delve into artistry that does not genre-adhere.

Unfortunately, one instance of the experimentation goes too far. "Who Are You" is a plodding, overwhelmingly inorganic synthesizer tune that is frankly annoying / grating. It's, sorry, bad, and interrupts the album just like "Fluff," except this time additionally pleading that you stop the disc. The other misstep is the penultimate track, "Looking For Today," which pulls the odd trick of duplicating the idea of the "SBS" with alternation between distorted riff and acoustics. Only the riff sounds less like BS and more like some weird emasculated Cream cover band, and the acoustics (complete with flute backup) sound like generic San Fran psychedelia. "LFT" also resembles some of the stuff I recently complained about on Ace Frehley: generic riff rock that, sure, is cool because it's Ozzy o'er the top, but otherwise unspecial. These are a pair of bad tracks that each try to "mature" the band in opposite directions; the first is an attempt to get seriously artsy/modern, the second to write something pop-accessible. Neither try works very well, and BS ends up sounding like a band trying not to sound like itself.

It's just strange - there are moments on this disc where you'll swear that the inflections, instrumental combinations and alternations between riffs and choruses must have come from Rush (seriously - listen for "Spiral Architect's" opening "Sorcerors of madness" lines and try not to think about "Free Will"), not the godfathers of death and every other kind of metal. That album cover alone seems to advertise nightmares galore, and while you do get those nightmarish fractured narratives, you don't get the accompanying consistently terrifying tone. So it's a departure - historically a good one, as it worked them into more mainstream airplay and concert venues and the like. But one that takes this away from what I would term a metal masterpiece; the missteps hinder it more than a little.

Still, a very good album, full of interesting and energizing music, and another piece of evidence that this band that is missing from my pre-pubescent memories may be at their best when they're terrifying, but this intricate, more melodic-style is pretty impressive, too. (And once again, I've probably under-emphasized the obvious - the first three tracks I mentioned are four star, expert executions of interesting, aggressive prog-metal. Don't think that your heart won't get jolted when those riffs kick in. You've been warned).

Status: Recommended (solid)
Nyet's Fave: "A National Acrobat"