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Track Listing: Black Sabbath The Wizard Behind The Wall Of Sleep N.I.B. Evil Woman Sleeping Village Warning Wicked World

The sounds of rain, thunder and bells blended together and created the first ever mental image of Black Sabbath in the listeners' mind, and to this day, exactly 41 years later, it remains as powerful as ever. But of course, what ensued in the remaining 42 and a half minutes of the self-titled debut album went on to define Sabbath as one of the most influential bands to have ever graced the planet.

It's incredible to even imagine that the album was recorded in a day. They just went into the studio and did it. End of story. The album beautifully exudes that rawness, and the pure heart and soul these musicians put in it is quite evident to me. It's extremely hard to find an album quite so pure in this day and age wherein everything has to be perfectly recorded through numerous retakes over a period ranging from weeks to months to even years, after which it has to be perfectly produced, over-dubbed, pro-tooled and everything else under the sun that you could think of.

Quite simply put, it's heavy blues rock revolving around dark underlying themes. It was the most mind blowing musical style anyone could think of at the time. Neither were they a straight up blues band, nor a 'black' or Satanic act. In the modern day I feel that bands are good at doing one of the above. No one has quite found that magic formula to reignite the Black Sabbath vibe, and no one ever will.

I would fail in my retrospective if I don't mention the fact that two of these songs are indeed covers, "Evil Woman" by the band Crow and "Warning" by Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. It's always been interesting for me to note that bands have traditionally included a cover or two on their debut albums, highlighting their earliest influences, those that helped create their native sound.

I would also fail if I attempted to describe and analyze each song on this album, because right from "Black Sabbath" to "Wicked World", the music emphatically speaks for itself. The fact the album is still being talked about, as many as 41 years after its release, is testimony to its sheer quality.

A timeless classic in the truest sense of the phrase, the Black Sabbath album will continue to live on in the minds and hearts of metal followers forever.