SACRIFICE

Public service announcement: I have seen this album referred to as a black metal album. It is not, so don't expect another BLACK SABBATH here. What you should expect is JETHRO TULL-like prog rock, dominated by sax, flute, and Hammond organ. The music on this album, despite the heavily Satanic lyrics, are hardly sinister sounding, it's actually pretty upbeat and cheery stuff, definately not what BLACK SABBATH done, and not even what Italian proggers JACULA (who later became ANTONIUS REX) had done.

The album starts off with "In Ancient Days", I love that Hammond organ intro, which epitomizes what was great of prog in the early days. The acoustic guitar kicks, and you hear sax, and Mellotron-like strings, before the vocals come in. "Come to the Sabbat" was the "hit" on the album, what I am surprised was a hit with the repeated chanting of "Come, Come, Come to the Sabbat, Satan's there". "Seduction" is a rather pleasant ballad, and I love the cheesy-sounding middle part that sounds like something off a bad movie. Another favorite song of mine is "Attack of the Demon" with lyrics that go: "All my sins have damned my soul in Hell". Then there's the lengthy title track which contains a jazzy solo.

All this album is totally early '70s. It's also BLACK WIDOW's only album with Satanic lyrics, it seems that certain fundamentalist Christian were outraged, and so the band dropped that image and all their following albums feature more typical lyrics. Still, if the thought of Satanic prog sounds interesting, then give this album a try.