Black Sabbath: Paranoid
THE original sleeve might have depicted a bloke in blue underpants and crash helmet running about in a forest but 1971’s Paranoid, the first of Sabbath’s must-have quartet of albums, makes for queasy listening.
Ozzy’s bedlam wail and Tony Iommi’s bleak guitar riffing helped define heavy metal – a genre to be made a laughing stock with Spinal Tap.
But almost 40 years on something unlovely still lurks beneath early Sabbath that humour can’t quite kill.
VERDICT 4/5
(Vertigo)