Is the album "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" heavy metal?

Album SBS - heavy metal or not?


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    17

Porch Monkey

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_music

Take the title track for e.g.

Massive sound - check (no? turn it up! lol)
Highly amplified distortion - check
Extended guitar solos - check
Emphatic beats - check
Overall loudness - what?! I can't hear you, the music's too bloody loud!

Plenty of heavy metal bands have tracks on their albums that aren't metal, but they're still heavy metal bands if most of their work fits the definition, and likewise with this album, I'd say.
 

joe

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Definitely. My fav from the band. The use of synthesizers, Mellotron, harpsichord, flute, piano and the keys from Rick Wakeman on "Sabbra Cadabra" plus the strings from the Phantom Fiddlers on "Spiral Architect" all add up to the first progressive metal album. :D
 

Dave78

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The brand of "Heavy Metal" that existed in the early-to-mid 70's might be primitive compared to the "Metal" genres of the 80's (Hair, Speed, Thrash), but Black Sabbath was considered Heavy Metal in the 70's (as was Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple), and just because Metal's sound has evolved since the early 70's, there's no reason to reclassify them as "Hard Rock" 40 years later.

Not everything that Zeppelin, Sabbath and Purple ever recorded was Heavy Metal, but there were certain songs (e.g.: Smoke on the Water, Highway Star, Paranoid, Sweet Leaf, Whole Lotta Love and Immigrant Song) that went beyond the parameters of what Hard Rock was at the time. That's the difference.

Though Jimi and Cream had their moments in the 60's with songs like Purple Haze and Sunshine of Your Love, which is why I mentioned those two songs as perhaps being the first Heavy Metal song in another thread.
 

Lynch

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The title track alone is the very epitome of heavy metal:


Everything about this song just ooozes heavy metal. The post-solo bridge at 03:17 could possibly be the birthplace of doom metal (of course, I'm no doom metal aficionado so I could be talking out of my ass on that one).
 

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