Album Review: Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1971)

Overview: 

This is probably the most well-known Sabbath record, with probably the most widely recognized songs.  Those that just listen to the singles as well as the diehard Black Sabbath fans can agree that this is one of the better Sabbath records out there.  A good portion of the tracks are staples of both the Black Sabbath and the Ozzy Osbourne live show and the record holds up incredibly well to the rigors of time.  Where Black Sabbath was blues with a good dose of heavy metal, Paranoid is where the band really starts to take their music even further into the heavy metal territory that so many later bands tried to emulate.  The fact that the title track (and Sabbath’s most popular still) was written in under a half hour just proves how creative this band was at the peak of their power.  Unfortunately the success of Paranoid gave them the kind of money where they could indulge (and overindulge) in bad habits. 

Tracks you may know: 

“Paranoid”:  Their most recognizable and popular song is still as good now when I re-listen to it as it was on that scratchy record in my parents’ living room.

“Faeries Wear Boots”:  It starts off with the instrumental “Jack the Stripper” (another staple from the first album) and turns into a song that, for lack of a better term, gallops along at a brisk pace, before changing tempo (at around the 3:40) mark for a bit.  Where “War Pigs” plods along, “Faeries Wear Boots” is much faster paced and shows that the band can do more than just different takes on “Black Sabbath”. 

“War Pigs”:  The opening track of the album starts out where Black Sabbath left off but gets heavier (and more political) before breaking into some of Iommi’s finest guitar work.

“Iron Man”:  This track harkens back to the slow plodding of “Black Sabbath” but was a tad lighter than the legitimately creepy title track from the first album.

Tracks you should know:

 “Hand of Doom”:  It goes from quiet to loud, to quiet to loud, to a damn near completely different song, and that’s in the first two and a half minutes.  This is definitely one of the better unknown tracks in the entire Sabbath catalog.

“Rat Salad”:  An instrumental that is similar to “Faeries Wear Boots” in terms of its tempo.  One of the shortest (if not the shortest) tracks on the album, it features a small drum solo by Bill Ward in the middle of it

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My personal favorite:

“Hand of Doom”:  I could pick almost any song off of this album for my favorite, the whole thing is great, but the ebb and flow of this song makes it one of the most interesting, and one of the best uses of Ozzy’s voice on this or any album. 

Album rating: 

                There’s a reason that this album catapulted Sabbath to worldwide fame and glory.  This album was not a critical darling, just like its predecessor, but it holds up as one of the more important, if not the most important metal albums of all time.

10/10