Paranoid

by

Black Sabbath

Edit

Black Sabbath's second album develops the self-penned heavy rock contained on their debut and does away with the obvious blues influences. Tony Iommi's murderous, downtuned guitar prowls through what is a mostly slowish collection of tracks. The hit title track is the only high-tempo song. Ozzy Osbourne delivers lyrics that combine fragmentary remarks on war, drugs and nuclear threat with references to the occult and the grisly, largely in a voice that evokes dread. There's the odd digression, such as 'Fairies Wear Boots', which appears to reveal a sense of humour. Otherwise, this is music to spook you.

Heavy metal is an over-used term. Hard rock is probably a better description for much of the early 1970s, but Black Sabbath are a rare

exception. Their music is closest of its era in type to what emerged from the so-called 'New Wave Of Heavy Metal' onwards. They're not subtle, apart from on the mystical 'Planet Caravan', and their lyrics are not intellectual or possessed of different nuances, but the mood they achieve is intense and powerful. 'Paranoid' is their first classic album.

I wanted to comment not so much on the over-reverberant, dull sound of the 5.1 DTS, but on the mastering of the two CDs.

The CDs (the original album and rehearsals) do sound good. I was surprised therefore when I transferred them and opened with a wave editor. Both have substantial amounts of clipping (that is, the level is set so high waveform peaks flatten at full scale).

I think the reason they sound better than the "Black Box" is that they have not been compressed by volume maxing software, and most of the clipping is knocking the tops off snare drum beats, where it is hard to detect. Still, I'll stick with the 1996 Castle remasters, free of any form volume maxing efforts.

Regarding the second CD, where the final album makes much use of multi-tracked guitars, the rehearsals on the second CD have only a single guitar. Other than that they are close to the final takes in terms of arrangement and mix.

What struck me most about the alternative lyrics on Planet Caravan was that the singing is free of electronic treatment - just raw, rough sung/spoken words. I think prefer this to the final version.

My conclusion - this package is only for the serious fan, and buy knowing the serious shortcomings highlighted in many of the reviews.

Cheers.