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Do yourself a favor. Take out your CD/LP/cassette tape/MP3 folder of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Listen to it. It turns 35 today. That’s older than me. Things older than oneself deserve respect. Especially if they’re still kicking their progeny’s ass 666 ways ’til Sunday. 95% of sludge/doom metal might as well give up. Sabbath did it first, and better. “Crushing,” “heavy,” and all that – sure. But people forget: Ward and Butler were two of the funkiest white boys ever to wear loon pants. “A National Acrobat” slinks behind the beat, then slathers “War Pigs” in wah-wah. Hendrix would have dug it. “Sabbra Cadabra” is boogie woogie from the nth dimension, swirling together astral synths and barrelhouse piano. I love Rise Above and Tee Pee Records, but, really, they’re just chasing Sabbath’s ghost. That’s OK, though. All of metal’s still playing catch-up.
A National AcrobatSabbra Cadabra
The promo for “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”: the worst music video ever?
So. F’ing. Good. I am embarrassed to admit that I first discovered “A National Acrobat” and “Sabbra Cadabra” via the Metallica cover on Garage, Inc. It’s a good cover, but can’t hold a Sabbra Candelabra to the originals. Why don’t metal bands outside of the dirty south embrace the blues anymore? All of a sudden I miss Dimebag.
There’s only one way to describe the riff of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, and that’s ‘towering’. No other word comes close in my mind. I’m a major, major fan of Sabotage, but I have to say that that particular riff is the absolute pinnacle for Sabbath. Quintessential. Ozzy’s Speak of the Devil was my introduction to Sabbath, but weirdly enough, as far as “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” goes, it was Anthrax’s cover on the I’m the Man EP in 87 that stopped me dead in my tracks.
Have to mention the very weird, extremely underrated “Who Are You”, whose main riff of which came from Ozzy, inexplicably enough.
Oceanic. Intoxicating.
Love that picture!
I don’t really like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath very much. I appreciate most of all the first Black Sabbath record but even from the second onwards they decline in quality in my opinion. By Sabbath Bloody Sabbath they were pretty wrecked on drugs and touring and they hated each other. I feel it in the record.
No Geezah, no Sabbath. Dude’s basslines get more ass than a toilet seat. The only other persistent mystery of the world besides the folks who actually understand Ozzy when he speaks, is Sabbath landing a drummer that not only kept up with Geezah, but also embelished his groove to ecstatic effect.
“Spiral Architect” is Black Sabbath’s finest progressive moment.
SBS is one of their greats, though like Helm says, you can feel them starting to not get along. I think that SBS is kind of the start of that on record…..but it’s still a damn fine record. “Fluff”, in particular, still ranks as one of the best un-typical Sabbath songs. The title track, the choruses are just bloody amazing, that kind of cascading, magical vibe.
Rick Wakeman plays keyboards on "Who Are You?", btw. Likely they met him when Sabbath & Yes toured together in '73. Though it's weird even imagining that double bill nowadays. The video's not THAT bad, I've seen plenty worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2CNIyRkHY
Sorry- someone showed me this once and it made me cry laughing. I could not resist posting it.
Wow. Ballsy. Thanks for sharing.
“National Acrobat is a song with riffs so heavy, so biting and so lovingly woven together with the beat that I never get tired of it. Is it the overdub? The aforementioned wah? Its irresistible.
When I saw Corrosion Of Conformity on their tour supporting the “Blind” album they played “National Acrobat” as their encore and it was incredible.
No, this is not the worst music video of all time. I just made a list of the worst 5 music videos of all time, and all these videos make “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” look like Citizen Kane.
Black Sabbath may be guilty of one thing, but creating an aesthetic atrocity is not one of them.
Have you heard the stuff without Ozzy or Dio???