![]() ![]() Just when you think this song couldn't get any better, Tony plays a C# to C riff piece, and you've got a perfect head-banging moment. Contrary to the popular belief that Ozzy Osbourne only sang to riffs, he's actually got a decent melody of his own that he carries through the bridge. Half-way through the song, the pace changes and we get an enjoyable bridge, filled with more drug-influenced horror lyrics. Geezer Butler's bluesy bass riff dominates all the verses of this song, while Ozzy's haunting lyrics float just at the surface before the song explodes into heaviness, with even more wails of doom, heavy riffs from Tony and Bill Ward pounding the kit with all his might. Track number six, " Hand of Doom", feels more like something from the first album. Just the atmosphere and the mood that these four create on this single soft track is the stuff that acid trips are made of. It's about space-travel, which was a big deal in 1970, a year after the moon landing (this topic would be taken up again in the Master of Reality track " Into the Void"). Ozzy's vocals are a little shaky, perhaps altered in the studio, but even more terror-inspiring, even on this soft song. Tony's guitar has been cleaned out of distortion, while Bill slaps away at on a very tribal-sounding drum beat. "Planet Caravan", the third track on this titanic album of heavy metal, isn't metal at all. My purpose is to prove just how this is the perfect metal album. My personal favorite is " Paranoid", especially when it is played live these days, in D tuning. Those are amazing songs, and only those who've been living under a rock, having never heard of Black Sabbath (any of it, not even Heaven and Hell or Tony and Co.), would know nothing about these amazing songs. I won't weary you with a rehashing of " War Pigs", " Paranoid", " Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral". Tony is.well, he's Tony, creating the mammoth riffs that we all know and love from this, the very Best Of old Sabbath. There's not much in regard to bass solos like " NIB", though the song " Hand of Doom" is predominately bass-driven. ![]() If anything, Bill Ward seems to have gotten even better at drumming than before. Though he can still make some impressive 'howls' on this album which, to me, is even darker than Black Sabbath's debut album had been. Ozzy's vocals are now on the high-end, as opposed to his lower-register "wailing" from the first album. The production quality is a little lacking, but that's to be expected from 70s music. Musically, Black Sabbath had definitely evolved somewhat from their title album. I can honestly say that I've enjoyed listening to every single track and continue to enjoy this classic metal piece. What can I say about Paranoid that hasn't been said over and over by so many before me? It's a great album, possibly the best album made by Black Sabbath of the original line-up. ![]()
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