Black Sabbath: Prole Metal to Ozzy and Beyond

FROM THE first oafish gothic crash of 'Black Sabbath' it was clear this band was dumb. Really intensely dumb. Even in that first hearing there was something in Ozzy's hammy Jack Bruce-and-beyond larynx, in the stonefaced simplicity of Tony Iommi's lost chords, in Geezer's globular lines and Bill Ward's sub-Bonham stomp. Something that spelled sublime idiocy. This wasn't the Black Sabbath of Mario Bava and Boris Karloff, it was drive-in Herschell Gordon Lewis.