Black Sabbath
Greatest Hits

THE REVIEW

This "greatest hits" is one of the lesser-known by Sabbath and is focused on the first 5 albums of the historic hard rock band, which are the best albums of their discography, those of the original line-up: Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, the genius Tony Iommi on guitar, Billy Ward on drums, and Geezer Butler on bass.

It's a well-prepared collection, although it also suffers, like many "greatest hits" out there, from the lack of live tracks or a couple of rarities that would justify the purchase of a "greatest hits" or a "best of". Nevertheless, the choice of tracks is spot-on.

It begins with the beautiful "Paranoid", a classic of the group and also of Osbourne's solo career, a rhythmic and engaging hard rock, born as a filler song, "Paranoid" has become one of the most famous pieces of Black Sabbath. It features Osbourne's classic vocal tone and the splendid guitar work of Iommi, short (2 minutes and 53 seconds) but effective. It continues with the beautiful "N. I. B.", which has practically stunning bass parts, one of Sabbath's "hardest" songs is solid heavy rock, with driving drums and magical riffs, directly from the splendid eponymous debut. The more "progressive" vein of Sabbath (those of "Vol. 4", in short, an album considered by many more progressive rock than hard rock) is represented by the famous piano-ballad "Changes", professionally arranged with strings and an extremely calm Ozzy, an emotional and sad song.

From the fifth work of Sabbath, they obviously draw the title track ("Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" for those who do not know), a track halfway between heavy metal riffs and jazzy interludes, one of the band's best works, obviously a classic, textbook solo for a super-inspired Iommi, Osbourne declaims his lyrics calm, letting the music gain strength. Another great classic directly from the second album is "Iron Man", 5 minutes and 58 seconds of pure heavy rock, paced, with immortal guitar riffs, an incisive and precise drum work, a song that has made the history of rock, just like the following "Black Sabbath", the song that gives the band its name is a track of hard rock imbued with psychedelia, dark and unsettling, if you close your eyes you really think you're in a sabbath with witches and goats, slow and marked by Osbourne's sinister verses, in full "horror film" style. The lengthy "War Pigs" (again from "Paranoid"), is a rock piece with a slow introduction and excellent bass work, Osbourne really on form, after the first 2 minutes the pace picks up, an excellent song well worth its 7 minutes and 57 seconds.

The acoustic "Laguna Sunrise" is, like "Changes", taken from "Vol. 4" and is an instrumental piece dominated by acoustic guitars, with beautiful melodies, but somewhat marginal and inappropriate for a "greatest hits". Always from the fourth effort of Black Sabbath comes "Tomorrow's Dream", less progressive than the rest of the album but still with some nice jazzy parts, but the main riff is more in line with previous works, a beautiful solo that reconfirms the professionalism of a guitarist like Tony Iommi. It concludes with two extracts from the third album "Masters Of Reality", namely the decent "Sweet Leaf", a bit repetitive but pleasant, and "After Forever" which presents itself as a lively and charged piece, confirmed by good work from the guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, well all 4 go great!

This collection fulfills its basic role, which is to give a good overview of the discography of Black Sabbath up to "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", but as I mentioned, adding some live tracks or a rare gem or two wouldn't have been a mistake.

Goodbye from thetrooper!