Black Sabbath

Paranoid (1970)

Paranoid is the band's most consistently dark and bleak album and by virtue of this had a major influence on the Metal to come. It is a journey into the heart of the darkness present in a world that had never recovered from the great wars earlier in the 20th century, and of course the string of wars being fought at the time. Whilst the debut album Black Sabbath actually had the church bells at the start, this sophomore follow up is the metaphorical bell ringing to signal the end of the hippy 'flower age' movement. Black Sabbath inject a healthy dose of reality into their music of the actual dark state of affairs of the world at the time (and by extension is still relevant today).

The album show-cased the band's ability on making use of the longer song format, especially the twin pieces of War Pigs and Hand of Doom, which feature their well-known soft/loud dynamics. War Pigs is themed around the ivory tower decisions of politicians and their cowardly isolation from personal consequences. War Pigs opens with howling guitars and air-raid sirens and features abrupt stop/start sections with Ozzy's vocals often without instrumental backing, instead wailing out between the din (creating an atmosphere that is full of paranoia). There is then a mid-tempo riff medley and the introduction of the song's major melodic lines (despite their gloomy nature, they somehow manage to have a classy, understated epic feel). The stop/start dynamics are again rotated into the mix, followed by a further recapitulation of the major melodic riffs as they eventually build-up into a pretty solo and then an almost anti-climax as they fade out into nothingness (a metaphorical annihilation if you will). Hand of Doom is a tale of mental disintegration and drug addiction brought about by disillusionment from the ever increasing threat of war and the existential threat of nuclear technology.  Fittingly the song structure and music choices play out exactly as a progressive descent into darkness. The ideas featured on these songs, especially the slow, crawling, crushingly emotive sections, with agonisingly drawn-out build-ups to moments of pure emotive outburst were heavily influential on the Doom Metal to come many years later.

Planet Caravan ironically borrows from the "camp-fire" influenced hippy aesthetic, with its soft, gentle percussion, washed out drug soaked baritone and gentle clean guitar, droning bass and alluring flute overdubs and piano combination. But the sound is reinvented and has been transformed into a heavily psychedelic brooding trip into the melancholy of the age - it is the inverse of the source.  Fairies Wear Boots whilst not the same aesthetically (it is more of a hard-rocker) flirts with a similar theme,  flipping the positive symbolism of fairies into a nightmare with a sinister, menacing edge. Iron Man and Paranoid are the most pop-Metal, Hard Rock affairs on the album, with catchy verse/chorus sections - but are still full of steely proto-Metal riffing and booming rhythm sections - and whilst they are heavily streamlined in execution and not as creative - maintain an ominous edge and lyrical themes full of doom. Electric Funeral is the most hellish, apocalyptic sounding song on the album, with that slow powerful riff and that famous doomed wah-wah pedal effect that is later contrasted against the frantic sounding mid-paced section (with the yelled secondary vocals bouncing off Ozzy - something that would later find a big place in the Metal of the 1980s).

Whether always intentional or not, Black Sabbath on this album could not keep the darkness at bay even from the songs that can be characterised as more up-tempo or 'poppy.' On top of their obvious heavy influence on multiple music genres, they should also be remembered for being a major catalyst on changing the mood of music - filling it with sinister themes and embracing the darker aspects of mood.

Master of Reality (1971)

Master of Reality saw the apocalyptic, anti-war themes of Paranoid shift more towards existential themes about the decay of the individual's soul due to dark forces in the world. There are also more instances where Christianity and man's relationship with God have influenced the band's lyrics.  Whilst the darker and morbid tones on here abound as previously (which is part of what makes Black Sabbath such a seminal influence on Metal in general), they are now based around drop-tuned guitar riffing. The more epic format found in songs such War Pigs has for the most part also disappeared. However, the band also continues to use the pentatonic/blues scale prominently in their music, and when combined with the deeper tones often gives them a laid-back, jammy or spaced out vibe to their music. Their aesthetic also combines many elements of the sound often associated with the heavy psych rock style of the time. Using these elements Black Sabbath are masters of creating song-writing frameworks that are very deliberate and purposeful in their approach whilst maintaining the appearance that they are messy, sloppy or improvisational.

Despite the mostly gloomy, melancholic nature of their music, Black Sabbath excel in the use of bluesy major key riffing and leads to provide a contrast to the heavy droning nature of their darkest moments. These more upbeat and dare I say it brighter sounding sections mesh seamlessly and add a mysterious component of emotional ambiguity - a light in a dark world searching for a saviour. As such there are hints of Christian hippy prophet themes that pervade the music, but these still obviously lack the highly glowing happiness or colour that was a major part of the flowery hippies of the 1960s. Much of Black Sabbath's lasting appeal, both musically and culturally, revolves around the fact that they were so hard to categorise - both then and now. Different groups of people tried to attach their music to a cause, but it is too elusive.  They were good at a lot of things, and also had many themes in their music, and were able to use this to shade it with so many minor details and variations.