So, let’s start from the beginning! Or almost the beginning… Many people consider this one the very first metal album. And not without reason. Black Sabbath’s homonymous debut is a time machine from 40 years ago: they transported the listeners of their time to the future of heavy metal.
Even the cover is "Metal" by today's standards.
I cannot think of an album more influential than this one. The very first track, aptly titled Black Sabbath, starts with the sound of a storm and the tolling of a church bell far away. The tense ambient is soon broken by a thundering guitar playing a doomy, simple tritone based riff. There you have it, just a few seconds into the album and one realizes these guys created something new. Almost 30 years later, Opeth started their third album in similar fashion. And it still sounded fresh.
But this album is not just a history lesson in metal music. It’s enjoyable! And I think it has aged really well. I won’t say it sounds modern, but it definitely does not sound outdated. It was avant-garde and innovative even if we forget we are talking about the very beginnings of metal for a moment. They created the basis of the genre, and at the same time broke its own rules. Some call the style proto-doom. The influence in doom metal is obvious, but it has so much more to it. There’s a bluesy harp melody on “The Wizard”, there’s a hard rock jam in “The Warning”, the classic “N.I.B.” is also from this album, and there is even some happier sounding songs like “Evil Woman”.
I don’t think this is the very first metal music in history. But it is indeed the first metal album. The Sabbaths really nailed it on their first one.
