{"id":13015,"date":"1970-09-18T00:00:40","date_gmt":"1970-09-18T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=13015"},"modified":"2013-07-20T11:31:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T11:31:33","slug":"album-review-black-sabbath-paranoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-black-sabbath-paranoid\/","title":{"rendered":"BLACK SABBATH – Paranoid (1970) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLACK SABBATH
Paranoid<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nVertigo (1970)<\/span>
Rating: 9.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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One can only scratch their head in amazement at the fact that Black Sabbath<\/a> managed to release two classic albums within a few months of each other, as Paranoid<\/em> emerged in the autumn of 1970. With the Vietnam War continuing its horrific march, the original title of War Pigs<\/em> was shelved, and so Paranoid<\/em> \u2013 providing just as much mysticism, image-wise, as the debut<\/a> \u2013 was used.<\/p>\n

Strangely, a man seemingly dressed in his underpants and a crash helmet, wielding a sword, would become a classic cover \u2013 the band by now familiar with evoking strangely hypnotic and almost spooky manifestations.<\/p>\n

Lead single \u2018Paranoid\u2019 (it has often been argued that the album was called Paranoid<\/em> simply due to the success of the single), despite its almost poppy, blues-based ingenuity, fades into the background as truly monstrous tracks such as \u2018War Pigs\u2019, \u2018Planet Caravan\u2019 and \u2018Iron Man\u2019 take over, with Geezer Butler\u2019s lyrics taking rock music to another level and walking hand in hand with Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s all too familiar banshee wail and Tony Iommi\u2019s gargantuan riffs. Black Sabbath were the musical equivalent to stumbling across a black mass in the woods \u2013 the shocked audience never quite sure if to take a step closer or run home to hide under the bed.<\/p>\n

The booming \u2018War Pigs\u2019 not only features some of Bill Ward\u2019s best drumming, but it\u2019s simply another perfect Sabbath track that, despite its epic nature, rambles like an invincible tank \u2013 Butler\u2019s bass is armour-plated, and Iommi\u2019s licks shift between bombastic blues and jazzed up shuffles.<\/p>\n

\u2018Paranoid\u2019 is without doubt the \u201cpop\u201d track of the album, bright and breezy in comparison to the psych-folk swirl of \u2018Planet Caravan\u2019 \u2013 Ozzy\u2019s vocals have an almost watery splendour to them as they are accompanied by Ward\u2019s folky bongo-styled drums and Iommi\u2019s breathless acoustics.<\/p>\n

But this lull in doom doesn\u2019t last for long as \u2018Iron Man\u2019 lurches forth from its extra-terrestrial lair. Suddenly, Black Sabbath find their niche; \u2018Iron Man\u2019 is a plodding beast of a track, made all the more rigid by Butler\u2019s dogged bass and Ward\u2019s stabbing drums. Lyrically, it\u2019s oh so simple yet eternally effective, which brings us to the dread that is \u2018Electric Funeral\u2019, probably one of the band\u2019s doomiest ever tracks as Ozzy barks \u201cDying world of radiation\u201d<\/em>, clearly in no mood to celebrate a summer of love he never experienced. Instead, Sabbath commentates on the real world around them; war, poverty, hunger and bad, bad weather.<\/p>\n

The ominous chug of \u2018Electric Funeral\u2019 is very much the track every doom band has tried to replicate over the last 20 or so years, never once coming close to the stormy glory of this devastating golem. And if you\u2019re still not scared by Sabbath, then \u2018Hand Of Doom\u2019 will make sure those underpants need changing \u2013 Butler\u2019s bass intro simmers until the drums and guitar join for a waterfall of sorrow, accompanied by Ozzy\u2019s vitriolic yawn.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hand Of Doom\u2019 is a schizophrenic track that one moment bubbles with malicious intent and then roars into the ear of the listener. It\u2019s a seven-minute stomper that once again addresses the state of the world, while the short but sweet instrumental \u2018Rat Salad\u2019 features Iommi\u2019s blues-based solos and a killer Ward drum assault.<\/p>\n

Paranoid<\/em> exits the room with the staggering \u2018Fairies Wear Boots\u2019, a seemingly drug-induced alcoholic haze of a groover that begins life as an instrumental before taking on a mid-paced chug. Many have debated as to what the song is actually about, with Geezer Butler claiming that it spawned from an encounter he and Ozzy had with a group of skinheads one night, although Tony Iommi opts for the more esoteric version that Ozzy and Geezer saw mythical winged entities while they were under the influence of cannabis! Either way, \u2018Fairies Wear Boots\u2019 is simply another timeless Sabbath track that rounds off another truly great record.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BLACK SABBATHParanoid Vertigo (1970)Rating: 9.5\/10 One can only scratch their head in amazement at the fact that Black Sabbath managed to release two classic albums within a few months of each other, as Paranoid emerged in the autumn of 1970. With the Vietnam War continuing its horrific march, the original title of War Pigs was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-sabbath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13015"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13073,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions\/13073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}