after a long wait of more than 15 years, i finally got a hold of my much sought after CD... "Nativity In Black" a tribute album for Black Sabbath. i was lucky enough to win the bid on it on-line at e-Bay. its a rare find and collectors item, as the album itself was never re-issued or reproduced since its release in 1994 from which i acquired a cassette tape during my band and rock n' roll metal years..
Blissfuly ignorant and unaware of anything, least of all their own music. Four guys from Birmingham who got pissed off with having no hope. Four guys who found themselves together and just went for it. Four guys who unknowingly discovered the dark dusty key to generations of disenfranchised youths. Iommi, Butler, Ward and Osbourne will never fully under stand over the last 40 years because it was never pre-conceived, never pre-planed. they just did it. That's right, they just happened to stumble upon playing the heaviest music in the world. Crushingly oppressive power chords that brought out the best of everyone's glumness. How many times did YOU just sit in your room with your friends and crank the Sabbath sound?
In an era where peace-and-love-hippy-dippy-flower-power-be-nice-and-sing-of eternal-spring bullsh*t was nigh impossible to escape, Black Sabbath came to open up everyone's personal wall of doom. Save their mind from stupefying mediocrity. To the addictively slow throbbing pulse of Butler's bass, to Wards tribalistic beats, Iommi's luciferious leads, to Osbourne's mocking tones, a million and more mental floodgates swung open and alowed generations to experience darkness without pain.
Peter Steele (Type O'Negative) felt that release. Max Cavalera (Sepultura) discovered empathetic rhythms. Dave Mustane (Megadeth) their heavy-set madness. Whitfield Crane (Ugly Kid Joe) was stupefied by the Sabbath sound. In fact, everyone who plays tribute with their interpretation of a classic was mesmerized at an early age by the three little words: The Sabbath Sound. A unique affair that has never been properly recognized. A sound that has established itself as the reason most bands of our era picked up instruments, the sound that kept the heavy metal alive, gave it a new voice, gave it new life forever. The will always be kids hearing "Supernaut" or "Paranoid" or "N.I.B" for the first time and going on to form a bands. There will always be kids who cannot believe that one band can take them on a trip so beautifully, deliciously heavy.
Nativity In Black is the result of a suggestion over a dinner table to a man who found his personal salvation in he Sabbath sound years ago as a small boy. Bob Chiappardi (album producer) spent years carfully putting together the bands on this compilation. It could have been a double album; that's how many of today's heavy metal heroes grew up in the same rooms with the same records, hearing the same liberation, feeling the same thing- ..that this band tapped into their soul.
Each song is lovingly crafted unique tribute to the band that still gives hope to millions in bedrooms worldwide. It is an album about the band that helped create its community. It is an album made by
its community for its community. This means this one's been made for you. And me. And them.
Just to share;
My mom always had a problem with me listening to Black Sabbath when i was young. But the cool thing about Sabbath albums was, that you could always find a really beautiful guitar prelude before it all goes heavy. So like on weekends, i would always sit my mom down right when she was about to start nagging on the music and say;
"here, listen to this.". And i would play her some nice classical guitar part or some pretty acoustic part.
I'd say, "Well, what do you think of this? and she would answer;
"O, i like this. this sound nice." and then, BAM! They'd get all heavy and I'd say;
"Well, i like that."Yea, this blog might sound and turn up like a review or somethin' but ..to all metalheads out there, this album is a must have.. two thumbs way up!
