Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Stopping their drug-fueled frenzy turned Black Sabbath into a multi-faceted monster with additional haunted progressive tinges, rather than sinking deeper into the doom groove. Engaging stuff, especially the effortless switches around the melody with an unpredictable solo here or there, a tempo change, or straight up changing genres for portions or full songs.

One underrated aspect is how Black Sabbath has deeper lyrics than one would expect. A National Acrobat is an ode to an unborn child and living life to the fullest, and Spiral Architect is about maintaining hope in a grim world. Honestly, you don't expect deep and concious(lly optimistic) lyrics in metal, especially from guys whose whole schtik was witches and the occult.

Does anyone else feel that Ozzy's voice is healing magic? His singing of death, for example, is just so alive. Like a good heavy metal band, Sabbath knows how to do the acoustic and the delicate perfectly, and, as always, they are asking difficult philosophical questions. "Spiral Architect", the lyrics of which purportedly came to the bassist in a dream, is a masterpiece of symphonic hard rock, and the use of the word "should" in the song reminds me that it is indeed my human duty to give thanks, for life is, in itself, good.