Black Sabbath, Paranoid (Vertigo)
Recorded in two days on a budget that would barely keep a goldfish alive. That didn’t stop “Black Sabbath” from becoming one of the most stunning debut-albums ever made. It was dark, it was heavy, it was scary, it was wonderful.
Arriving in February 1970 and dressed in a sleeve you could hardly ignore. That photo is not a photo, it’s alive, it’s as if you been lost in the woods and have just found a clearing; there’s a vacant mill, there’s a lake, oh, but you don’t feel any relief, because right in front of you, in the dying daylight, out of nowhere, stands a mysterious lady, clutching a black cat, she’s watching you, she’s most definitely gonna do you harm. The fonts, the words, the Vertigo logo – it’s all perfect. I knew nothing about this band when that sleeve caught my eyes, but I knew right away that I had to buy the album.
I’m not gonna argue with those who claim that it’s an uneven album, but “Black Sabbath” is not a collection of individual songs that you evaluate separately, it is a total package that resonates deep down in the Vincent Price-crypt. It was conceived just when rock records, thanks to improved studio technology, delivered better ambience and more bottom, and the guitar-players began stealing attention from the vocalists.
The cool thing was long tracks with lots of guitar, a huge, punchy bottom and the familiar doses of the electric blues. “Black Sabbath” had all that, but it simultaneously confronted the listener on a completely different level than the hippy trippy bands that were the darlings of the student communities. Black Sabbath were in your face, confrontative, they apparently sank their fangs into Christendom, it was as if Satan had bought himself an electric guitar, they sounded like doomsday and destruction.
“Black Sabbath” was the darkest record ever made. It was both extremely enjoyable and dead scary, just like a great horror movie. Highlights were the title track (those fantastic first seconds are pure cinema, the sound of thunder, the torrential rain, the chimes of a distant church bell… and then the guitar arrives, so slow, so alarmingly evil – wow!) and the album’s roaring 14-minute finale, “Sleeping Village” / “Warning”.
When the group’s second album, “Paranoid”, arrived seven months later, expectations were high. The title track had already ravaged the single charts for a few weeks, three minutes of anxiety and testosterone built on a superb, fast moving guitar riff. I was ready for great things but was greatly disappointed by its sleeve. The sword-waving figure coming out of the woods looks as if he is heading for a kindergarten-carnival, sporting a scooter helmet borrowed from his sister. The fonts aren’t very impressive either. The packaging left a lot to be desired.
A feeling of desperation came creeping as the needle worked its way through the record. Black Sabbath were equally heavy, Iommi’s guitar just as incisive and brutal, the riffs hit your cerebellum like nails from a nail gun, Ozzy’s hollering, everything sounded like it should, except that the album lacked its predecessor’s dramaturgy, and the demons had gone on vacation. And where oh where was the long one, the 14 minute thundering epic?
Many critics hold “Paranoid” as one of the greatest heavy-rock-albums of all-time. I do not understand why.
The opening track “War Pigs”, hardly gets anywhere at all, for its first six and a half minutes it’s stuck in a sequence nicked from Jimi Hendrix’ “If Six Was Nine”. The track is screaming for something, anything to release it, and Iommi eventually comes to the rescue, but unfortunately only briefly, because just when everything takes off, it’s all over. Iommi’s marvellous guitar-solo could have lasted for ever, but is cut short after one minute. Unforgiveable!
“Planet Caravan” is a slow, semi-psychedelic space walk, not much of a tune, but it does work as a breather among the more brutal sounding tracks.
“Iron Man” on the other hand, is a sure fire Sabbath-classic. It even has a storyline. Someone should base a science fiction movie on it. “Iron Man” is hooked on a massive monster riff, the drums attack in full widescreen with a bottom punch to them that make the basement rumble. Ozzy belts the story, and the whole thing is spiced with Iommi’s trademark riff-based solo-runs. What a spectacular rumble!
“Electric Funeral” glides lazily on a leaden, wah wah treated riff and could have turned into something if they had come up with a better solution than the messy change of pace midway. They use a similar structure on “Hand Of Doom” but with a much better result, the slow sections are dark and so quiet they could sneak into a blues club without anybody noticing, while the fast and hard hitting parts are fired up by some outstanding Iommi-riffing.
“Rat Salad” is Sabbath’s version of Cream’s “Toad”, i.e. an instrumental built around a drum solo. Fortunately Bill Ward restricts our suffering to two and a half minutes while Ginger Baker went on for weeks.
The album concludes with “Fairies Wear Boots”, its intro a minute long a very inspired Iommi-solo, before the band hits the turbo and takes off in a shower of sparks delivering a heavy-rock boogie where Ozzy loses himself in a lyric he must have thought up while strolling through the park high on jazz-cigarettes. What is he on about? The song fades the moment Iommi discovers what sounds like a promising detour. Annoying.
And that’s the album. A huge disappointment Of the longer tracks “War Pigs” takes a long time not getting anywhere, and when it finally decides to blast off, it stops. “Hand Of Doom” is fine craftsmanship, but has no surprises up its sleeves. And the album’s only heavy rock classic, “Iron Man” (“Paranoid” is a super-cool pop single, but it’s a ditty, not a heavy rock classic), is in turn not exploited for all it’s worth. In this song Black Sabbath had all the ingredients for a thunderous 15-minute epic, but chickened out after six.
The lyrics are not up to their debut’s standard either. The group probably felt the need to distance themselves from their undeserved, but partly self-inflicted Satanist image. The main topics are still evil and doom, but now it is the manmade versions. They dislike wars and the politicians who causes them (now who doesn’t?), they fear that final nuclear blast and they convey gloomy thoughts about drug addiction. And most of all, of course, they (or rather Ozzy) are terrified of fairies running around in boots.
With “Paranoid” Black Sabbath present themselves as social critics dressed up in silly kids-costumes, waving toy swords. Not very convincing. If only the songs had been better.
On their next album, “Master Of Reality”, they blended the best parts of the lyrics from both predecessors and nailed them to a fine-tuned heavy-rock machinery, pouring out what sounds more like movements in a dark symphony than individual songs. That album is their masterpiece, not “Paranoid”.
Released: Sepember 28, 1970
Produced by: Rodger Bain
Contents: War Pigs/Paranoid/Planet Caravan/Iron Man/Electric Funeral/Hand of Doom/Rat Salad/Fairies Wear Boots
Personnel:
Tony Iommi – guitar, flute
Geezer Butler – bass guitar
Ozzy Osbourne – vocals
Bill Ward – drums, congas
Additional personnel
Tom Allom – piano on “Planet Caravan”
