Return of Black Sabbath, 1974

A Creem record review of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"

It ended where it began: in Birmingham, England, where a quartet named Black Sabbath began in 1968 and changed rock music forever. Perhaps taking their moniker from the 1963 Mario Bava horror anthology, “Black Sabbath,” with each of four shorter films introduced by Boris Karloff, they mocked the pretensions of late 1960s rock with sledge-hammer riffs and songs thought to be in praise of her satanic majesty. Heavy metal: It’s their legacy. Last week, Black Sabbath: Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), Bill Ward (drums) and singer Ozzy Osbourne—“a baffled and discomfited force of nature,” The Guardian's Michael Hann wrote, returned to the scene of the crime: Birmingham, no longer in boozy dives but the football stadium of the Premier League’s Aston Villa, where a grand menagerie of artists the Sabs inspired, said goodbye to the band.

Black Sabbath, its music and shenanigans, was essential to the Creem magazine for which I wrote regularly and was on the masthead from 1971-1975. This review of Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, in the April 1974 issue, was written while I was the titular-only "New York editor." It represents the original Creem style in quintessence: mockery and self-mockery, praise and insult, sarcasm and honesty, fiction and fact, and it was up to the reader to decide which was which. One thing for which the original Creem had no tolerance for was rock star "privilege." Everything was subject to lampoon by harpoon. I’m even maintaining the original spelling of “Ozzie,” because what did we know? We loved Black Sabbath at Creem magazine in the 1970s, while Rolling Stone drooled over James Taylor. We liked bands that actually drooled.

Black Sabbath: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath (Warner Bros.)

Wayne Robins, Creem, April 1974

THE QUESTION, Sabs, is where you been so long? So highly irresponsible was their disappearing act over a year ago that heavy metal almost vanished from the face of the earth.

Unlike every other gang of electric warriors, Black Sabbath alone retains ultimate dignity.

Would they ever let Todd Rundgren produce them to get a hit record? You know that answer. Would they ever do a reggae to get some cheap airplay, like Jimmy Page and the Blimp That Pissed in the Continental Hyatt House? No way, man. The Sabs got integrity.

So we've been stuck here, putting automatic throwaways like Atomic Rooster in the "maybe" pile, and reluctantly dealing with imitators like Uriah Heep, Martin Mull, Captain Beyond and Helen Reddy. Of course, the Sabs have had more important things to do than lay the only metal on us. It's been suggested that Tony Iommi went back to college, got his degree in anthropology, and thought about becoming a teacher. And everyone knows that Ozzie (sic) Osbourne went to Hollywood, only to get stuck with the worst new TV series of the year. Every time I watch Ozzie's Girls I just can't believe they did it to us. [ed. note: This was not a vision anticipating the Osbourne family's 21st century reality TV ubiquity. Ozzie's Girls was an attempted 1973 sequel to the 1950s white picket fences-with-music TV phenomenon Ozzie and Harriet with their boys David and Ricky Nelson.]

How to cope? One day for a lark Dave Marsh suggested listening to Master of Reality at 45 r.p.m. You know what it sounded like? The Allman Brothers! So for the last few months we've been reversing the process, listening to Brothers and Sisters at 16 r.p.m. But the thrill is wearing thin, since that ruined two $55 cartridges, and hey, man, I'm running outta Placidyls. And 'Ramblin' Man' certainly ain't no 'War Pigs'.

Finally, salvation. Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath is here, and you know, they didn't let us down. Even if when you put it on, and get engrossed in conversation for what seems like a half hour, you find out the first song is still going. Even if we had extended discussions with authorities when they found this kid in my English class on the sidewalk, having splattered in the parking lot from the third floor of our school. He did say that 'Spiral Architect' was "Kahlil Gibran for Satanists," didn't he? The dude's lucky he can still drink through a straw.

No questions asked of the Sabs, though. They've been too busy making their most ambitious album to date. There is actually a chord change on 'Who Are You', and a certain amount of melodic inventiveness that some of the more Cro-Magnonesque elements of Sab culture might have a hard time dealing with.

The most difficult aspect of all this to relate to is the appearance of Yes' Rick Wakeman on some kinda screwy keyboard. You know what that smells like to me: Attempted Artistic Achievement, and if the Sabs ever fall for that, they're sunk.

Fortunately, no such disaster has occurred on this album. Wakeman makes it as an honorary Sab with the same ease that sensitive smart guy Curt qualified for membership in the Pharoahs in American Graffiti. They still write songs with lines like "God knows as your dognose/Bog blast all of you..." Can there be any doubt about who is back in town? Sabbra Cadabra!

© Wayne Robins, 1974, 2024, 2025

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