Album Dive
One thing this merry band of Metal Nerderers will agree on: we LOVE us some Black Sabbath! And with fall being the quintessentially ideal season for Sabbath (and with Witches Night right around the corner), we felt it was the perfect time to jump deep into the ultra-creepy end and get into the brutally heavy modern day classic that really freaked people out a half a century ago in 1970 (!): Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”.
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Anytime we get to talk about Black Sabbath, it’s always a good time! It’s the fall, so take a get-ready pill, prepare your favorite relaxer, shut out the rest of the world for a while while you enjoy said relaxer and JOIN US as we head back to 1970, back to dark wood paneling and orange shag carpeting and back to a time when the darkest, heaviest metal band on earth was about to completely change the game with an album that would go down in history as one of the finest (if not also one of THE most critically important) moments in ALL of metal.
Black Sabbath Paranoid
WAR PIGS
Notice how right before it goes into the guitar solo on WAR PIGS that it gets just a LITTLE bit LOUDER? (Isn’t it obvious?) It’s like they just “bumped” the levels a hair…if you listen to it through headphones you can hear it…right around “wait’ till their judgment day comes”. For whatever reason, I seem to think that in September of 1970, anytime someone heard the end of LUKES WALL they wondered if the acid flashbacks were kicking in, if that “incense” was actually “organic”, or if the recording engineer somehow sped up the tape on purpose?
PARANOID
Isn’t it crazy that the song PARANOID was written as almost a “throw away” song? That solo is fuzzed out, super stoner style!! For some reason, that little “chime” you can hear on the main riff has this weird jazzy vibe to it, even though it was probably not necessarily intended that way (think of it as a passing note). But then, it’s Tony Iommi, so naturally, it’s fucking brilliant. Period. No further discussion is needed.
PLANET CARAVAN
..is nothing but pure vibe that requires a bowl of relaxer, a wall covered in black light posters with fractals that seem to pulsate and shift with each passing moment of the song as the lava lamps dance and melt and coalesce and morph into fantastical shapes and designs as you realize that all walls, time and matter disappear and you are at once transported to the center of the Multiverse.
IRON MAN
..is quite easily one of THE heaviest openings, riffs, EVERYTHING EVAHHHHH!!! ½ a century later, that song is still just as brutally heavy today! And that breakdown. Somehow it almost reminds me of a faster version of the outro to Black Sabbath. There are some songs that I get sick to death of every time they come on rock radio. This one is not one of those songs.
ELECTRIC FUNERAL
..is such a kick ass opener to Side 2. It’s so dark and creepy that you can practically FEEL the musty dustiness, the weathered wood paneling, and the faded orange shag carpeting. And if you’re still reading at this point, I’m sure you can probably feel that hybrid blend starting to kick in. The blacklights, lava lamps and fractal posters should all be pulsating and shifting and melting into everything by this point.
HAND OF DOOM
By the time HAND OF DOOM kicks in, you’ve (likely) already rolled another bowl (of your favorite relaxer) and the lyrics (which you should read) begin to paint a grim mental picture of what’s to become of you if you should decide to walk down that dark path of heroin addiction (or really, ANY addiction for that matter!). The heaviness of the lyrics easily matches the heaviness of the riffs (never mind the overall encompassing heaviness of the entire record!).
RAT SALAD
Even though it seems almost wildly out of place (and sounds absolutely delicious), RAT SALAD adds just enough WTF to allow Bill Ward to showcase his drumming mastery. Plus, it’s a great appetizer. Serve some at your next family or corporate event.
(NOTE: I think I’d still prefer RAT SALAD over any other kind of “meat” based salad masquerading as prepackaged VOMIT that’s out there: egg salad, ham salad, tuna salad, insert vomit noise here salad.
FAIRIES WEAR BOOTS
Of all the songs on PARANOID, somehow FAIRIES WEAR BOOTS is the most vivid in terms of total overall imagery. This is one of those things that will be lost on a lot of people today because album art is not as much a part of the “listening experience” of music as it used to be, thanks to technology and downloads. But the darkness of the album art and (again) the extreme darkness and heaviness of the music and lyrics paint a wonderfully bleak and apocalyptical vision of supernatural creatures dancing around a fire, deep in the woods on Walpurgis night. As the song fades out, it’s as if waking from a dream while everything fades back into conscious reality.
Show Notes:
(00:00): Squeeze it…#noteven / Black Sabbath: Paranoid (check out our Deep Cuts Episode.Podcast)/ The perfect backdrop for a Black Sabbath Dive (#onmicburp)
(04:10): – The album cover (weirdest album cover ever???) / One half of a century of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid goodness / Blessed be the #sabbathjams / #Walpurgis (Wait, WHAT?) #woe2you / Various covers of War Pigs / #metalnerderyASMR / ***RANT ALERT*** #thehatetank
(13:47): – Iron Man and WrAstlin’ #twomohawks #dontworryaboutit / Implications involving Paranoid #dontdenythepowerof / Paranoid: more punchy and better songsmanship / #prenwobhmnwobhm / Metal Bane wishes to read your emails, EMAIL US at metalnerdery@gmail.com /Various releases from 1970 (and the Jethro Tull vs Metallica incident; check out our Black Sabbath Episode, to find out the tangentionalality of Jethro Tull to Black Sabbath)
(23:06): – A time machine to go to shows? YES PLEASE!! / War Pigs/Luke’s Wall (www.metalnerdery.com/podcast/) #cantbeloudenough #cble / The Evil Dead + Edibles (#ohlordyeah #readthoselyrics) / #theblackalbum gag will never die / Those moments of greatness you don’t realize you’re creating when you’re actually creating those moments of greatness
(31:00): – Paranoid (a song about depression): it’s the Primal Concrete Sledge of Paranoid the album / Planet Caravan (#rollanotherbowl of your favorite #relaxer) / Iron Man (#readthoselyrics): definitely NOT related to the comic book hero / Backstory regarding the story behind those lyrics
(38:00): – Side 2 (check out the Sabbath Deep Cuts episode) Electric Funeral (that middle part tho…): ½ a century later and it’s STILL creepy af/ Tracking and Sequencing changes and/or recommendations from our perspective (JOIN US on Facebook and let us know what YOUR tracking changes might be) / Hand of Doom (It has a very “70’s” sound and feel)
(46:51): – Rat Salad / Fairies Wear Boots (one of THE best Sabbath Tracks EVER!) #70sSound #alrightnow (Fairies wear boots and dancin’ with the dwarves…) probably one of the most delicious servings of #riffcasserole ever created/ #ALLRIGHTNOW!!!! #smokin and #trippin #yeah (Metallica tangentionalalitynessnessnesque) / #itsthere #fucking #brilliant / THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO METAL NERDERY (and NOT on behalf of all of us…WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!)