BLACK SABBATH - BLACK SABBATH
Sabbath's self titled song has to be one of the greatest openers both for an albums and for a career ever. Kind of wild thinking about what it must have been like to hear this when it came out. The ****ing riff plus the church bells and rain is doomiest ****ing thing ever... and the way Ozzy begs for mercy on this track. This is really iconic, important piece of rock music, and not just for doom proper. Basically, if someone prefers Led Zeppelin more than this band I will slash their tires.
A lot of tropes start here. This, along with Master of Reality (moreso than, say, Paranoid) are really the blueprint for every other album I plan to discuss in this thread. There had certainly been loud rock bands before, but no one was as gloomy till this album. A turning point.
One thing I really appreciate about the debut is all the jamming that happens. It's always worked well into tracks, and Black Sabbath were definitely a band who knew how to improvise tightly. Especially here, they're super jazzy and loose. And boy are there some iconic ****ing riffs here.
Ozzy's vocals are really the gold standard for any kind of melodic doom singing imo. Not very many vocalists could deliver Black Sabbath's material with this level of conviction and style without it coming off corny.
This is my favourite Black Sabbath album. I like the looseness and all the jamming, and I like the atmosphere. I think it's a very good package all told. Actually it's a perfect album. It's one of the best albums of all time.
This is where it all starts...