BLACK SABBATH by Black Sabbath

Where it all began.

Listening Notes

1. Black Sabbath - Storm. Bell. Thunder. Classic opening. (Inspired Raining Blood perhaps?) Power chord, and trills. Matching bass line. Ominous. Dark. Classic, just classic. Drive is turned down, gets quieter but it's still creepy. Then we have Ozzy's voice. Sharp, minor, haunting. Scary / horror movie lyrics. Oh no! Quiet again. You can almost imagine him hiding and whispering these words to you. Big black shape with eyes of fire ... Oh, no, no, please, God help me! RIFF! The gallop. Satan's coming 'round the bend! Might be my favorite Black Sabbath song. If not, it's up there.
2. The Wizard - Harmonica. Tonal shift. Bluesy. I love the back and forth of the riffs with the other guys in the band. It's done really well, along with the older production techniques of having hard pans of instruments in the speakers, e.g., guitars left, drums right. Song is about our favorite wizard. Spreading his magic.
3. Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Bassically / N.I.B. - Opening hear sounds a bit more like other music of the time. Feels safe. That is until the lyrics come in ping-ponging back and forth in your ears. More interplay between the guitars and vocals and rhythm sections. "Turns your body to a corpse / Sleeping wall of remorse" lyrics let you know while this doesn't sound as sinister as the opening track, they haven't let up on the imagery yet. Now we get the famous Geezer bass playing which leads into such a great bass line. It's heavy and groovy. And the lyrics: again I can see what they inspired, namely the song Anything by Danzig. I can't imagine being a teenager and listening to this in the 70s when he gets to the line "My name is Lucifer, please take my hand". Chills. Iommi's guitar solos. Genre-defining and delicious.
4. Wicked World - Catchy opening. Again belying the lyrics a bit. After the opening the riff turns a bit darker. And we have a bit of social commentary. After the second verse there is a musical bridge; a bit of a classical breakdown. Tonal shift again. Blistering solo. Hard panned to the right speaker. Sounds weird like that. Bass is on the left when the rest of the band comes in. I think stereo imaging is relatively new at this time.
5. A Bit of Finger / Sleeping Village / Warning - Acoustic opening. Jaw Harp. Sounds vaguely "eastern" | hard cut to a western guitar riff. 2 minute mark there is some fun guitar play. This really highlights the stereo capabilities. I am sure it sounded amazing at the time, however it's a bit dated now. Long parts of this song sound like psychedelic-jam-band rock. Not bad, just sounds a little typical of the time. Paired with some production choices that made some of the guitar solo bits sound like ticks in my ears, it's not bad. I have a feeling that Side A got played a lot more than Side B back in the day.

Production Notes

Dated, and definitely a product of the time. I think the most interesting thing here is the hard-panning they are doing. At times that does seem to add to the listening experience and at other times it is borderline un-listenable. Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but with headphones on parts are definitely less enjoyable because of it.