Every 70s Metal Album Rated and Reviewed Part 1 - 1970

A lofty endeavor, but something I always wanted to try. I figured it would be really cool to see the evolution of early heavy metal and since the genre was still in its infancy throughout most of the 1970s this shouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming. I will be using rateyourmusic.com to keep track of the albums and my ratings.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

13 February 1970
Black Sabbath's first album.
First Metal album.
First Heavy Metal album.
My Rating: 9/10
RYM Rating (As of this post): 4.09/5
Primary Genres: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock
Secondary Genres: Blues Rock, Traditional Doom Metal

I've already talked about this album on my Black Sabbath Discography Review series so here are my thoughts from that:

Side A has some of my favourite Black Sabbath tracks such as Black Sabbath, N.I.B. and Behind the Wall of Sleep. The opening track, Black Sabbath, is an ominous epic. This song is brilliantly dynamic, getting louder and quieter every so often. Iommi's guitar playing is pretty much perfect here, building in intensity with the other instruments throughout the song. I also love the end of this song, where finally the band is given the opportunity to go all out and play some fast and intense metal we expect.

N.I.B. has one of my favourite riffs, so simple, yet given so much importance thanks to Iommi's playing and the excellent guitar tone used. Like the rest of the album, Iommi's solos are amazing, blending perfectly with the rest of the song.

Unfortunately side B is a bit weaker than side A, Sleeping Village and Warning are good but notably weaker than the other songs. They still have fantastic solos though.

Black Sabbath is certainly not perfect, but it has some really fantastic songs, and its importance to music can not be understated. Iommi's guitar playing is the obvious highlight and Ozzy's unique vocal style adds to the doomy style of the album.

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

18 September 1970
Black Sabbath's second album.
Black Sabbath's highest rated album.
Number 1 for 1970 metal and 1970 overall.
Number 15 overall!
Number 1 Metal album.
Number 1 Heavy Metal album.
My Rating: 9/10
RYM Rating (As of this post): 4.20/5
Primary Genres: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock
Secondary Genres: Blues Rock, Traditional Doom Metal

As before, I have already written a review on this album:

Easily the most famous Black Sabbath album, Paranoid was also released in 1970, just 7 months after the debut. Paranoid features two of Black Sabbath's most popular songs: Paranoid and Iron Man. It also features War Pigs, another of my favourites, which has some more amazing riffs and solos.

Planet Caravan is a very unique song, focusing on deeper, bassier sounds. It's quite a hypnotic song really. Electric Funeral has a really cool and interesting guitar tone and Rat Salad is a fun instrumental song.

Paranoid is an improvement on Black Sabbath by a little bit, thanks to a greater average quality of songs.

Kingdom Come - Sir Lord Baltimore

December 1970
Sir Lord Baltimore's first album.
Sir Lord Baltimore's highest rated album.
My Rating: 8/10
RYM Rating (As of this post): 3.71/5
Primary Genres: Heavy Psych, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Criminally unknown, Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut is excellent. It leans much more towards the psychedelic side of rock and because of that has an absolutely incredibly fuzzy guitar tone. The title track is especially fantastic. Such brilliant riffs here. They combined heavy psychedelic rock sounds with similar low bass to Black Sabbath and soaring vocals as a hint of what would come later in metal. I really like the soaring vocals myself. This album isn't as good as Black Sabbath's first few but it's incredibly impressive considering it came out in 1970

Thanks for reading!

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