# black sabbath



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Ok i got to admit im not a big sabbath fan exceot there 5 first album, my favorite is by far black sabbath eponymus very soulfull in a way bluesy i have it on vynil.

Nothing quite like sabbath except maybe *pagan altar* from britain, very old school sabbath worship here.If you like black sabbath you will drool like a pavlov dog hearing pagan altar.


----------



## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

Pagan Altar's first album is a classic album. Their other albums are good, but perhaps traded a bit of the spirit that made the first album great for a few more tasty guitar licks.


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I was heavily into them in the early 1970s when I was in my mid-teens. I liked their heavy sound, despite their mostly repellent lyrics, and was also into a lot of other mostly British hard rock bands at the time. By the mid-'70s, when they released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, I could no longer stomach their offerings. They appeared to have embarked on a cheesy commercial Satan trip. Their first was my least favourite of the first four albums, which I consider to be their best ones, likely because of the bluesy sound. They began to develop a unique sound with Paranoid, the first album I got into, and reached their peak with Master of Reality, still my favourite of theirs today. Vol. 4 has some of their best songs, but some very bad ones, too.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm still a card-carrying fan of their first six albums. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the first one I bought so I'll always hold a torch for it. I thought the follow-up, Sabotage, was brilliant as it combined the trademark sledgehammer riffs with a fresher and more diverse approach, but after that it was a serious case of the law of diminishing returns - too much cocaine mixed with a lack of inspiration/motivation isn't a good combination. 

As a 15-year old schoolboy I saw them in their own back yard at Birmingham Odeon in 1978 and you could tell that the Ozzy line-up had run its course - they sounded tired and shambolic and even though there was the expected wall of sound which could hide a multitude of sins you could tell they were misfiring badly. They were supported by a young cocksure band from LA who had not long released a breathtaking debut album and there was a palpable feeling of witnessing one sun rise followed by another one sinking. That support band were Van Halen and quite frankly they blew Sabbath off stage - that this should happen to Sabbath, especially in their home town, was unthinkable before then.

I thought Sabbath clawed back some of their lustre when Dio joined even though many one-eyed fans back then would prefer to put up with bad albums featuring Ozzy rather than decent ones featuring anyone else. It didn't last. After the Mob Rules album and Dio's departure in 1982/3 the revolving-door recruitment policy got embarrassing (Ian Gillan? Gimme a break already!!) and I gave up on them for good not long after. I then saw the original line up in Birmingham in 1997 and they were excellent - I think that gig helped to put things right and restore some credibility to their legacy, at least for a while.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi (Feb 4, 2014)

brotagonist said:


> I was *heavily* into them in the early 1970s [...]


I see what you did there. :lol:


----------



## csolomonholmes (Nov 18, 2013)

Have you ever heard of The Sword from Austin, Texas? Their first album, Age of Winters, is Master of Reality meets Volume 4. Unfortunately they started changing direction on their next album. Nothing sounds like or even comes close to Age of Winters. I highly recommend it. It's one of a kind. Ever heard Electric Wizard? Their early stuff is pretty sabbith-y. Sleep's Holy Mountain by Sleep is another. I'm fond of the vocalist but the music is right on. 

As far as Sabbath, themselves, is concerned... I own 5 different pressings of Master of Reality, 7 different pressings of Vol. 4, 3 of Sabbath Bloody, and 3 of Sabotage. The reason is simple. Each of the pressing's mix sounds different from one to the other varying from a slight difference to radically different. 

That should tell you a little bit about what I think of early Black Sabbath.... Haha.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

The sound of a storm. Thunder, rain ... and a tolling bell. Then a guitar begins a death rock riff. A rumbling drum joins in. And a strangely toned voice sings "What is this that stands before me / Figure in black which points at me ..."

Yeah. I remember the first time I heard Black Sabbath. It was playing their song "Black Sabbath" on the album _Black Sabbath_. And I worked on learning that speeding guitar lick that crashes into the song midway through. Played it (and sang it) several times with a band back in the early '70s. It was the closest I ever got to being a heavy metal maven, and I've always loved the song.

I still have the original album, and a couple of other Black Sabbath on vinyl. (As I type, I'm playing side one of Record One of the 2-LP set titled _We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll_. The sound is still glorious after all these years.

I'd crank it up, but it might scare the horses.







and


----------



## PabloElFlamenco (Jun 5, 2014)

Black Sabbath is amongst the very first rock bands I ever saw (and, if I remember correctly, heard), at "Jazz Bilzen" open air festival, must have been around 1971 or so, performing i.a. "Paranoid" which, just heard it again in full glory a few days ago on sunday morning's RtbF "Classic 21" radio program: the finesse! the lyrics! the music! (said entirely tongue in cheek).


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

deprofundis said:


> Ok i got to admit im not a big sabbath fan exceot there 5 first album, my favorite is by far black sabbath eponymus very soulfull in a way bluesy i have it on vynil.
> 
> Nothing quite like sabbath except maybe *pagan altar* from britain, very old school sabbath worship here.If you like black sabbath you will drool like a pavlov dog hearing pagan altar.


Bedemon was a doom rock band that in the early seventies sounded like a heavier version of Black sabbath (actually I don't know if there were other bands so heavy at the time)


----------

