Black Sabbath
Paranoid

Here is my first review, many of you have asked me to review masterpieces like The Who's Quadrophenia or Tommy, but I decided to choose Paranoid given its historical importance in the Heavy world.

After the first self-titled album, Black Sabbath with Uncle Ozzy and Tony Iommi released "Paranoid." Now, I remember that 1970 was the year of "In Rock" by Deep Purple; Hard Rock was born from the roots of Blues and Rock'n'Roll. The new sound was made up of hard riffs and songs drawn from the greats of Blues, made devastating by the hard and compact sound (see Led Zeppelin II or In Rock). Well, today we always talk about the famous quartet composed of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep, the four pivotal Hard Rock bands that influenced thousands and thousands of bands in the following years. However, Black Sabbath proposed a new sound in the years of the end of the Hippie culture, flower power, and the acids of San Francisco of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, that psychedelic blues we find in works like Happy Trails and Aoxomoxoa is a whole other universe compared to the new music proposed by Black Sabbath. Their first studio work contains songs like "Black Sabbath," "The Wizard," and "N.I.B." a new dark and very hard sound, with lyrics alluding to demons, ghosts, and monsters, all seasoned by Ozzy Osbourne's claustrophobic voice and Tony Iommi's riffs that give a very particular tone to the songs.

Let's talk about the album now, "Paranoid" as I said was released in 1970 and marked the beginning of the success that Black Sabbath would have in the following years. The album opens with a masterpiece like "War Pigs" which begins with powerful riffs and then progresses into solos. From this song alone, we understand that it was Sabbath who invented the Heavy and Doom sound. Hearing these songs today may seem trivial, but they were extremely hard and scandalous at the time, critics snubbed the band from the start and were obviously proven wrong by the astounding sales of the subsequent Masters Of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The second song is the title track "Paranoid," the hit single that begins with another famous riff by Iommi and speaks of the usual fears and claustrophobias of the characters interpreted by Osbourne in the lyrics, like the next "Planet Caravan" with a melancholic and dark voice, the piece that most deviates from the classic Sabbath sound but still has something "Dark." Then comes "Iron Man," Tony Iommi gives us other historic riffs; like "War Pigs," the chorus is repeated after Iommi's solos with an almost "Fantasy" text, another song that will give rise to many genres like Stoner.

"Electric Funeral" starts with distortions and follows more or less the line of "War Pigs" with Ozzy's singing alternating with Iommi's guitar strumming, the track evolves to then return to the starting point. The masterpiece of the album for me is "Hand Of Doom" which will give way to Doom, the song begins with Butler's bass and then explodes into the central riff, and like the other songs, it picks up the dark rhythm of the beginning. This song is a Sabbath classic and one of the most famous bass lines, with lyrics focused on a man's death by overdose. "Rat Salad" is an instrumental track with Ward giving us an excellent performance on the drums, concluding with "Fairies Wear Boots," another heavy track with Ward and Iommi as protagonists, closing this album essential for Heavy Metal music, which gave rise to many subgenres. The subsequent works of Sabbath would be platinum records in various countries, and masterpieces like "Masters Of Reality," "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath," and "Sabotage" would launch Heavy into success and give rise to many bands at the end of the 70s that would bring Metal worldwide. 

Have mercy if you find many errors, please point them out since I've never done a review before, and I apologize again for the lack of originality, but I couldn't resist given my passion for Sabbath and this masterpiece. Next, I'll do one on The Who as promised.