#234 Black Sabbath, 'Master of Reality' (1971)

Previously #300

The third record by Metal’s founding fathers starts off with a tape loop of Tony Iommi coughing from a joint he had been smoking with Ozzy. The song that immediately follows is ‘Sweet Leaf,’ the band’s love letter to marijuana. This album is sludgy and heavy. Considered as one of the first Stoner Rock albums, the album was poorly received at the time but has come to be considered one of the greatest Metal albums of all time.

Two of the signature songs on the record, ‘Children Of The Grave’ and ‘Into The Void’ have such a ridiculously heavy sound and this is due to Iommi down-tuning his strings to make it less painful to play (previously explained on ‘Black Sabbath’ #355). ‘Embryo,’ a 27 second instrumental track, is a great example of how classical music and metal come together. This songs serves as the perfect intro to ‘Children Of The Grave.’ ‘Orchid,’ another beautiful acoustic instrumental number, follows and similar to ‘Embryo,’ serves as the perfect outro. The song that surprised me most was ‘Solitude.’ Another quieter song, Ozzy’s voice is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard it. I actually had to check that it was, in fact, him singing. A quick Google tells me that I wasn’t the only one that thought this. I really do like this album, but have always thought the artwork to be a bit goofy and unrepresentative. ‘Into The Void’ is the perfect way to end the album.

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