Review by Morpheus Kitami for Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)

Let's see if I can say something unique about this one. Probably not. I've been trying to get back into playing the guitar, which I generally can't make as intelligent observations about my own skill or lackthereof outside of stuff like "how the fuck do you play that chord?" or "made that note high-pitched". Every skill from guitar to language learning has observations you can make as an amateur and observations you can only make if you actually know what you're doing.
This applies here in that there are two albums called Black Sabbath. The Black Sabbath we all have in our head that's heavier than everything released until 1982, which is really just the first song, and then the other Black Sabbath, which has that and then far more psychedelic music flow throughout it. I don't need to explain the former album, even if you haven't listened to Black Sabbath its the exact thing you have in your head from reputation or the album cover, it's the latter that needs explaining. The album minus the title track.
While the album is very heavy for 1970 it is not so out of place for the most part. Other bands occasionally reached the heaviness on one or more tracks an album. Basically every single distinct song on this album is at least a bit metal. The key word is distinct song. There is a lot of more jam session-esque pieces on the album bridging songs. Not Dream Theater, more Grateful Dead. An almost ambient backing, carrying the dark mood far more than most metal bands would do afterwards.
In this regard, no one imitating the band has gotten close to them. It's very easy to imitate the heavy sound these guys had, but it's another to imitate the whole package. To start off with something that sounds like it should be playing over the apocalyptic wastes before switching to a heavier version of '60s bluesy rock instrumental. To not make it sound forced or obviously distinct, but for it to just be. Not their doom metal imitators, nor their occult rock imitators. Even my personal candidate for the band carrying on the original Sabbath spirit, Ningen Isu, only ever get as far as imitating most of their elements. If metal is defined as imitating Sabbath, metal has failed.
This is back in the days when Ozzy still sounded weird and alien, rather than a coked out methhead behind a 7/11. You get some strange contrasts. On The Wizard, despite sounding dark and depressing, comes off as oddly upbeat which by all accounts should come off as deeply sarcastic. Especially since the album ends with a song in which he laments about a love he never had. It's one of those things that happens because this is the era where a band doing X genre absolutely must do so and so lyrically.
Sabbath's debut is just as unique now as it was originally. Did it invent heavy metal? Basically, but it's not just that, and that's why 50 years down the line it's worth listening to even as probably millions have imitated it in some way.