PARANOID

I have a bias for this album because it was one of the very first albums I ever adored, well as much as one can adore something material (I would never care for a CD more than say a family member). Sure, the production is crap and Osbourne isn't as commanding of a vocalist as he would be on SABOTAGE, and on the surface, it looks like an ordinary rock album. Where's the prog?

There's a mystique about this album that gives this album a prog essence. The subtle intricacies that ''War Pigs'' provides are just sublime; it starts in a shuffle, but sharply picks up speed in the nearly a capella verses and leads into superb guitar work of one Tony Iommin, the MVP of PARANOID. Very prog is the spacey ''Planet Caravan'', where the drumming sounds almost mystical and the guitars are very jazzy. Black Sabbath are one of those rare groups that can load their songs with a bunch of riffs and still have compositional merit as ''Iron Man'', ''Hand of Doom'' and ''Fairies Wear Boots'' can attest to (although these songs don't shove 50 riffs into 5 minutes).

Black Sabbath fit the prog related category moreso on their mid-seventies efforts than here, but there are some progressive tendencies here. If anything, this should be in the essentials of prog rock simply to provide relief from too much prog.