Yeah! This is a fantastic album. The birth of heavy metal is clear here. War Pigs is an extremely hard and awesome intro to one of the best rock albums of all time. This album is among the first examples of dark war-based riffs. There is a political commentary hear too. If this album got in a fight with almost any other album the other album would go home crying to the extremely hard riffs and power of this bad boy. This is just an explosion of metal here. A lot harder than their debut “Black Sabbath” it also features some flashier guitar work. This is an example of metal's coming out into the 70's. I'm sure people hearing this album for the first time were like WOW my ears are bleeding and this is amazing! On a more personal note Iron Man (on this album) is the second song I learned to play on guitar and the first I could play upside down behind my head. (Yeah I can do that). This is among the best albums ever.
There are some iconic Sabbath songs on this album, in particular Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs. (Ironic that Iron Man is nt the title of this album as that goes on to be the more popular song.) The music is hard and powerful. Ozzy's voice (which is the first thing I think of when I think of metal vocals) dominates the music while Iommi proves himself as a guitar god. The album is so hard you can feel it and it just fills you with an inexplicable urge to turn the amp up to 11 :) and have the sound destroy your house (or apartment building in my case).
There is nice juxtaposition though, this is especially seen between the songs Paranoid and the immediately following and much softer track Planet Caravan. Which in my opinion is a pretty weak piece without Paranoid behind it to make it juxtapose in a nice way. Planet Caravan is also the only place on the album that you can hear any of the blues influence of Sabbath (Polka Fulk, teehee). No doubt the best track is the legendary Iron Man, the only good song most little kids know. I play it loud to tick off those pop listening neighbors. I love that song it just fills me with all the emotions metal is supposed to make you feel. It is headbanging angry and generally the 2nd best song ever (number 1 is Stairway).
Overall this is a monster album. Possibly Sabbath's best featuring most of their best songs (misses Crazy Train). This album just dominates the entire metal scene. All you Death Metalheads would have nothing but for these guys and Iommi's missing fingers (actually this is what my grandfather thinks is extreme metal, and it was in his day :)). This is so hard and amazing you can't help but love it. There are great musical effects and power all over the place. The lyrics rock, actually everything about this album rocks. In short I and every other sane person on earth loves tis album.
OVERALL 10/10
Paranoid
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