It is a widely-held opinion that Black Sabbath indeed created the genre of metal (or, maybe more accurately, were the first metal band, as some would ascribe the "invention" of metal to maybe Led Zeppelin).

I think we're perhaps parsing statements a bit here regarding Sabbath. Some folks would ascribe the invention/creation of 'metal' to Blue Cheer, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, or The Who. I've even read suggestions that Helter Skelter is the jumping off point so I guess we need to throw McCartney in the mix as well. However, I'm confident in saying that without the contributions of 70's era Sabbath (or in particular, Tony Iommi), metal isn't what it is today.

Fight me.

Yeah, I'll join the choir. Masterpieces don't have songs like Swinging the Chain, but I'm listening to it again now, and it's definitely Black Sabbath. Thanks, guys!

Here's an unpopular opinion: I don't particularly care for 70's rock/metal. I don't mind it when I hear it, but it's not something I'll actively choose to listen, generally. And yes, that goes for (gasp!) Sabbath and Priest as well. I'm not even sure I've heard all of Sabbath's 70's albums; I know I have listened to at least 3 of them and have no big desire to hear more. As for Priest, Stained Class is their first truly great album im my book, the ones before ar still too infested with that 70's style for me to really enjoy (although there are some individual amazing songs).

Same for me, though I don't think it's the "70'sness" of the early albums that doesn't work for me. They contain some absolute gems, like Dissident Aggressor, but indeed, Stained Class is their first solid album.

I find FFDP enjoyable.

I like Johnny Blade but side 2 of NSD is a mess. The drugs were featuring way more than the songwriting by this point and it really showed, with the band throwing anything at the wall to see if it worked.

Technical Ecstasy is a serious step down from Sabotage and the first indication that the well had run dry, but You Won't Change Me and Dirty Women are both classics and save the record to an extent.

For me Gorgoroth are a very mediocre band
Antichrist is the archetype,3 songs and fillers,instrumental of 5 minutes on a full of 24.

Pentagram and Under the sign of hell are only “goods”

I like more Gaahl era.

Destroyer is a desaster,Incipit Satan mediocre,Quantos is destroyed by production,Instictus isn’t bm

Twilight and Ad Majorem are masterpieces


Ps Monumension only for Convoy to Nothingness is a must

Ppss Technical Exstasy is mediocre very mediocre

There's no Gorgoroth I dislike - but I def prefer the Gaahl stuff over anything (especially Incipit Satan).

I see where you're coming from. I do like some albums of theirs, but a lot of it is forgettable. Incipit Satan is also a classic album during the Gaahl era.

I used to agree with Luuvers that Never Say Die is leagues better than Technical Ecstasy, but I have, after MANY years, come around on Technical Ecstasy. Is it great? Maybe not, but certainly good. I always loved Back Street Kids. It took me a while to get used to the keys in You Won't Change Me, but I like that one now. It's Alright isn't as abominable as it once seemed. People actually were right about Dirty Women.... Not the heaviest or darkest or doomiest Sabbath song, but the songwriting is incredible.... I agree that She's Gone is very depressive and bleak, whether or not is in a major key is irrelevant, my ears decide the mood, not music theory. Gypsy is also pretty cool, I really like the middle section.

There used to be three Sabbath albums and one pseudo Sabbath album I hated: Technical Ecstasy, Seventh Star, Headless Cross, and The Devil You Know. I have since come around on Technical Ecstasy and Headless Cross, The Devil You Know only to some extent (the first three tracks are really enjoyable, Double the Pain's ok, and then the album just stops dead for me at Rock and Roll Angel and Turn of the Screw, those two songs just make me want to listen to something else. Eating the Cannibals and Neverwhere are great though, those are the two tracks I always enjoyed. I haven't come around on Seventh Star yet, but then again it has a been a LOOOOONG time since I've given it a shot.

Awesome! I am really happy I and a few others inspired you to even try it out, that enough makes me happy, and you liking it is a bonus!

I never got the lukewarm response to Devil You Know. Every track on there straight up kills. Massive heavy riffs and just great Dio hooks.

I think I figured out two factors why it is not to my liking:

1. Dio's vocal style. The music is heavy and doomy and dark, and IMO Dio should've much more used his "angrier" vocal style, as featured on much of Dehumanizer, but instead he went with pretty much exclusively his more melodic style, which is great for what it is, but just doesn't suit this dark music as well.

2. The production. I can tell these are heavy as fuck riffs that should be hitting me over the head like a sledgehammer. But they're not. Like it's not raw or muddy or something too loud or too quiet or anything like that, but there's just something about the production that doesn't give the riffs the "bite" they should have.

Why do so many Metallica fans feel personally betrayed by the band, for making music that sounds like other bands, that these same people like, but still has the unique Metallica sound; refuse to acknowledge that their thrash era had other influences, that they had these other influences since the first album, that Cliff Burton introduced these other influences to their sound; that the band is never again going to be 25 year old drunks, getting in fights all the time, that the music will reflect that; refuse to vote with their money, by not buying new albums and tickets, and instead supporting newer thrash bands, and rather, just don’t even care that newer bands exist?

It’s not a run on sentence, it has commas.

Huh well interesting, I really like what Dio does on there. He sounds tremendous and mournful and the hooks and vocal lines just ache and thunder out of the speakers. Production, I dunno, never bothered me I guess - sounds nice and meaty.

For all Tid and Stormblast are both interesting and fun albums that get unfairly maligned by people predisposed to hate them for their more mainstream run

The Stormblast redo is pretty good. Probably not a popular take on that album.

yeah... I thought about it and I tend to agree...too many bells and whistles... Immortal pwned them, in my opinion.

Probably because it is horrendously slow moving. So slow that even a snail would complain about how slow it moved. The album lacks any energy and is easily the worst offering that version of Sabbath ever released. Bible Black is a damn good song but other than that the album is a complete snooze fest.Well then I would hate to see you listening to music that is bleak and depressive regardless of your ears. Just because you would rather go skipping through daisies to a song that is otherwise depressing does not change the fact that it is depressing. Your ears decide what you like, music theory is where artistic expression is based. Sorry to burst your bubble but what key it is written/performed in IS important. There is no darker key than a harmonic D minor. Try listening to She's Gone as an instrumental. The melodic lines are written in a major key and is why the music does not sound bleak and depressing.

Side Note: Back in July of 2011 a few transcribers were to submit acoustic transcriptions and because I was already transcribing the entirety of Technical Ecstasy at the time I chose She's Gone. It remains the ONLY time I have ever listened to that song all the way through, and I had to do it several times. I isolated each of the six tracks and when I say that the music is bright and in major key, I am not wrong. It was easier to transcribe Ozzy when his vocals are isolated but damn if it was not a challenge to play/write out a transcription of a singer who was, on that record, so seriously off key.Or, maybe... just maybe, they continued that tradition of diversity that the band is most known for in that era. Whereas you find side 2 to be a mess, I find it to be strong other than the horrible Close To You. Just because the band decided to Jazzy up their sound does not make it bad. Perhaps it would do you well to leave metal behind altogether for a brief period and absorb other styles of music, particuraly Jazz. If you did that you would find how the metal you are championing(see: consistency) is usually boring.Classics? They would be the worst two songs on the album but She's Gone is embarrassing. YWCM & DW both meander about, never going anywhere and reek of dull ideas.

Cause sell out…

I hate them(hate is a big world)ok I don’t like them because they are hypocrites…

Fuck the system and after crying on Napster?

Ah last but not least after Black Album they wrote few decent songs…

What's the consensus here on Czech pioneering black metal band Root?

I know they are probably considered as black metal as Celtic Frost or Bathory would be - 1st wave - but for my money, records like "Hell Symphony", "The Temple in the Underworld" and "Black Seal" blow a lot of mid Darkthrone records out of the water.

This kind of thing is so much cooler, and better, than any Watain, Dimmu Borgir, Deathspell Omega, etc crap for me.

This is also true. More people need to get into the more esoteric corner of BM that's less bells-and-whistly; Root, Mortuary Drape, early Rotting Christ, Samael, Master's Hammer...

Thank you! I, of course, agree

Even Zjeveni, their debut, is such a monstrous wicked force of an album. And Temple of the Underworld through Black Seal, I dunno how any metalhead couldn't like that. Temple... is a mainstay for me during the Halloween season for sure.

This made me look up Root to see what they've been up to. Somehow some fake information got spread last April that Big Boss was dead and the band was done but a quick look at their social media pages proved both of those things to be completely false.

I've heard Hell Symphony, Temple in the Underworld, and Kargeras - Return from Oblivion. Hell Symphony has some great songs, but not everything works and it's a bit uneven overall. The other two I've heard are fantastic, and always leave me feeling like I need to keep exploring their work, but I never know which album to try next.

Listening to Temple in the Underworld right now.

I have no problem with the diversity of sounds, I just don't think the song writing is very good on that album.

Oh and thanks for the snide patronising attitude that you seem to have adopted in your judgemental reply where you insinuate that I should somehow broaden my supposed musical close mindedness. I'm well aware of the influence of both jazz and classical on Sabbath's output (Bill Ward's drumming style being a prime example of jazz influence, surely?) and I've made the point on these forums several times over the years that one of the main downsides of a lot of modern stoner rock and doom metal is the narrow range of influences used by those bands as opposed to the wide palette Sabbath were drawing from.

Put Watain and Deathspell Omega in the same sentence with Borgir is blasphemy….

Beyond taste…

Pretty boring, lame music from what I've heard.

I fixed that one for you

To be completely honest, Root aren't the most consistent band, but when Big Boss is on, he's COMPLETELY on and he had a lot to offer in the 90s. Even their latest 2016 album offers many of his qualities.

Yeah Watain fuckin rule and there's room for Root in my collection too, both tickle my taste buds in slightly different but good ways.

I would agree with that. While I like the album more than others here, I still only gave it a 66 in my review, for whatever that is worth. Junior's Eyes and A Hard Road are both awful. The reason I do not think the songwriting is terrible and, at worst, is like you wrote with 'very good' is that the aforementioned two songs and Close To You (the ones I dislike) are all uber generic and pedestrian by Sabbath's standards. Now take Johnny Blade, Shockwave, Air Dance, Breakout & Swinging the Chain. These eclectic songs are much more indicative of who Sabbath were in that era and save it from being awful. I did not feel that way about a single song from Technical Ecstasy, save for maybe Gypsy. That song at least had a progressive element to it. So we are not really in disagreement here.
That is weird, I clearly never meant that to be snide or patronizing. I would also agree completely with your final sentence. A big reason I have never loved Doom metal as much as others is its reliance on slower tempos and blues based riffs.

But as far as snide patronizing, not at all. The things you have written here I usually hear/read from people who are not very diverse listeners, which of course is perfectly fine. I am sure you enjoy a wide range of styles; today's marvels of technology makes that easier than ever. I have noticed the more one listens to music far removed from their preferred style the easier it is to not only distinguish those influences when heard but embrace that 'difference'. So not, not snide or patronizing at all.

^ Fair enough, maybe I overreacted a bit. It was very early in the morning when I read it so not at my most alert.

Root's take on operatic vocals with classic metal riffing is so good that it makes me wish later-era Therion was doing something like that instead of...whatever the fuck they've been doing for the last 15 years.

Czechia Have a strong bm scene

For what it’s worth, My interpretation was exactly the same as yours.

I kind of put Root in the same category as Mortuary Drape in terms of being a band that's always been able to tap into that classic heavy metal sound and mesh it with that more occult edge that I listen to black metal for.