Black Sabbath

The dance opens beneath a shroud of rain and thunder, with mournful bells (funeral bells, of course) that leave no room for doubt: then a solid riff, torn straight from the forge of some hellish furnace, officially opens "Black Sabbath", which then quiets down to set the stage for the triumphant entrance of Ozzy Osbourne's raspy, powerful voice. The pathos is genuinely dense, like a milky fog through which Ward's fine percussive skills and the enveloping, rubbery weight of Butler's bass shine through. The song's coda is definitely worth noting, accelerating over a quivering drone of electric guitar that "calls in" one of Iommi's earliest solos. The following "The Wizard" brings in a few more tasty elements, from a rhythm section that recalls distant jazz excursions to the napalm blast of a biting harmonica (played by Ozzy Osbourne), resulting in a strangely restless atmosphere, as if it were a Yardbirds standard that had had its faith in the blues ripped out by a bad trip.

"Behind The Wall Of Sleep" has much more in common with Led Zeppelin, from its skipping intro to the mid-tempo verse, not to mention the thrilling bass-guitar interplay and Ozzy Osbourne's own delivery, more "clipped" and biting: a small but great song, a showcase of instrumental skill and the essentiality of a perfect arrangement.

Conversely, "N.I.B." leans entirely on Iommi's "theory of riff solidification", with a melody that's perhaps a bit predictable but redeemed by a diabolically syrupy chorus (with a tambourine in the left channel as the only hope of earthly salvation: truly chilling). On top of that, the closing solo is spectacular: a searing pour of white-hot metal.

Let's flip the record over, so to speak, and land on "Evil Woman", a cover of a hit by the American band Crow that was meant to serve as the chart-topping single: it didn't turn out that way, partly because the track is enjoyable but not outstanding, with a predictable rhythm that not even Butler's great bass work manages to redeem, and with "stars" Iommi and Osbourne merely doing their homework well. "Sleeping Village" plays like an instrumental interlude (except for the near-spoken-word intro, set against a deeply gloomy arpeggio complete with a jaw harp), still indebted to the sharp sound trademarked by Cream and Zeppelin. There's no real break between this and "Warning", which Butler drives forward on a great, sinuous bass line, relentless as a boa constrictor. Tony Iommi has an easy time painting his visions - hardly heavenly ones - on the walls of this purgatory of the soul, inhabited by an Ozzy Osbourne who is both skilled and hammy in a genuinely fitting performance, even if in the end the real champions are still the other three (after all, it's three-quarters an instrumental track): Bill Ward knows exactly when to ease off, turn soft, even disappear, leaving the stage to that possessed showman Iommi, the (rather unsightly) stepbrother of His Majesty Jimmy Page, who, like him, occasionally gives in to the urge to show off, risking digression and letting the "argument" fray at the edges. In short, things from another era, though one way or another they made history and remain a joy to listen back to.

Closing the program is the B-side of "Evil Woman", a "Wicked World" that further confirms Ward's tendency toward jazzy rhythmic flutter, as well as the fact that Ozzy, when he wanted to, knew how to put himself fruitfully at the service of Black Sabbath.

So, is this the record that fathered hard rock and heavy metal? Maybe: musically, this attention to timbre and the body of sound, this ability to master even the pauses and - in a sense - to make silence itself resonate, is something that's barely found in the hard rock that followed. It's perhaps more that attitude of moral otherness, that interplay of ethics and aesthetics clearly tilted toward darkness, that sets the true precedent. Either way, a truly great record: recommended equally to die-hard hard-rockers and metalheads and to castaways of the psychedelic dream, with a wink to nostalgics of electric blues (who probably already know it).

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27/10/2006