Review Summary: Sabbath fully embrace Heavy Metal.
Black Sabbath's debut was considered by many to be the very first heavy metal album. Paranoid, their sophomore album, which was released a mere seven months later, expanded on what they started with their debut, and took it to even greater heights. The debut still had many traces of blues rock throughout, and with Paranoid, Sabbath made the decision to discard much of that and in the process created a pure metal album.
Although there are still some blues elements, they're nowhere near as prominent as they were on the debut. This is apparent from the first very power chords of the opening track War Pigs, which crash in the moment you press play accompanied by the sound of sirens. War Pigs is a very dynamic track featuring quiet drum fills from Bill Ward in between the crushing riffs of Iommi, whose riffing on this album is much heavier and less bluesy than the debut. War Pigs is arguably Sabbath's most well known track and just edges out the band track for their best opener which tells you how a much of a great song it must be. The outro solo is amazing and really finishes off the song on a high note.
The guitar work is easily the album's highlight. Aside from War Pigs, you have Iron Man, Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom, Fairies Wear Boots and the albums title track, each featuring some of the best riffing that Iommi ever wrote. Iron Man's main riff is well known even to people who aren't into heavy metal and Ozzy rightfully said "it sounds like a big iron bloke walking about". The sheer heaviness of the riff is enough to crush skulls. Electric Funeral has possibly the best wah-wah riff and it enhances the apocalyptic feeling of the song, flowing perfectly in between Ozzy's vocal lines. Hand of Doom goes from quiet verses with Geezer's eerie bassline and builds up to louder, heavier sections, the track has arguably the best guitar playing on the album, halfway through the song, where it picks up in speed, before descending back into the bassline. The title track was originally only written at the last minute in order to fill up space on the album, but was a huge success and one of Sabbath's most popular songs.
Vocally, Ozzy seems much more comfortable with his voice on here, and gives an amazing performance. No one else could have fit these songs better, and he perfectly adds to the doom and gloom which is present throughout most of the record.
Despite most of this album being dominated by Iommi's heavy guitar, there is still a lot of diversity to be found. Planet Caravan is a spacey ballad which is very different to the rest of the album, and features a laid back atmosphere and jazzy guitar solo. Ozzy's vocals on this track are also much different than on the other tracks, as he sung through a Leslie speaker to create a strange, distant sound to his voice. The placing of this track on the album is perfect, since Iron Man immediately follows, and the calmness makes the start of the song that much heavier.
With Paranoid, Black Sabbath created a blueprint for all other metal bands to follow. Their debut may have created the genre, but Paranoid showed the true potential of what heavy metal can be, straying from its blues roots with loud crushing riffs, pounding drums and a dark atmosphere. To think this came out just seven months after their debut is just astounding, since it came a long way artistically, and is where the band had really found their sound which the debut only glimpsed at. Considered by many to be Sabbath's magnum opus, it is not hard to see why. It also remains their most successful album, and the most influential metal album of all time. A classic in every sense of the word.
