Black Sabbath - "Symptom Of the Universe"

And how come no love for Thrill Of It All? One of my all time faves. Although, it's true that it holds a special place for me because it was the first ever Sab song I heard.

Been too long since I listened to Sabotage anyway. On it goes!

(He said, while listening to "Megalomania.")

ned listens to this every january, obv.

sabotage is radical....yay cokaine!

I just came across a great Ozzy-referencing Monster Magnet review by Ned Raggett in AMG while looking up a particular song ("Superjudge"):

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE47D1ADE46A87F20D7933150CCA77BD21FDB51F394112E045BD9A12D51980763E85FFA95CCAEFE6AB679AFF962AC500CD2C0EE53ECBC1B&sql=10:v8420rjar489

My favorite line: "...everything is scaled for the biggest arena in the universe". Sweet.

Anyway, I like me the band Visitations, who I talk about here, and their lead guy Brendan under his Garm moniker included a cover of "Symptom" on The Acid Skull 205 that I now share via YSI:

Garm -- "Symptom of the Universe"

Do enjoy, if enjoy it you do.

was used as walk on music in recent Sab tours…

http://s54.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=30ET9F0AQK1HE3U7UTPHTIEUDC

I would join the debate over the best Black Sabbath album but unfortunately during adolescence Paranoid was somehow burned into my DNA.

veronica, FYI "Supertzar" has been used as Sabbath's walk-on music for decades...

Anybody ever hear the Born Again demos? They're quite good.

ned, it's time to listen to this again

Sabbath had already invented metal, but this song really invented the more modern style of heavy riffing that everyone in the 80s and beyond copied ad nauseum.

There's also a really great Sepultura cover of this on Blood Rooted with a nicely tweaked acoustic outro (that's purposefully less funk AND instrumental).

Also, way up thread, people keep saying that the first 5 Sabbath albums are great. This track is from their 6th album. Collect them all people!

this is the song of songs

I love how the heaviest metal riff of all time morphs into this samba/flamenco noodly thing at the end.

this is the krautrockiest sabbath song

well, one of the krautrockiest

the end is definitely influenced by side 2 of led zeppelin IV

"Thrill Of It All" is more "kraut"-ier, as in it bounces between the harder rock Guru Guru and Amon Duul II, even during THEE SHIFT on that song when the synths kick in, the disco is on, and Ozzy falsettos "AAAAAAAAAAOOOOW YEEEEEEEEEEAH!"

Ha, I like how I was invoked above. And yes it is January and yes I am playing this song of songs again YEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

one of sabbath's greatest songs. pity the album as a whole is inconsistent with bizarre arrangements and forays into the orchestral offsetting the potency of the tunes on offer.

i have not heard Sabotage, but I really REALLY want to....Symptom is second only to Children of the Grave & Supernaut in my book (with Cornucopia right on its heels...man what a great band!)

Sabbath albums 5-8 are great BECAUSE they are inconsistent, mostly. Never SAy Die! is consistent though, and also great. But Sabotage is at least the best of these four.

Yeah, Sabotage's "inconsistency" = its basic weirdness, right?

I don't think they're even weird. It's more a matter of degrees. The first four Sabbath albums are, more or less, this atomic molecule that changed the weight of rock, but still, as much as I think the first four are vital and important, I got tired of them, so the looseness and variety of the next four Sabbath albums was really nice, even if they were made under less than ideal circumstances wrt the band on drugs, getting along, falling apart.

Never Say Die! is great, but in the grimmest way wrt the band. That album is the sound of a band trying to run the 10 meter dash, and just slowing down around meter 2 or so. It's (untentionally?) thematic in a sense. The quasi-random instrumental "Break Out" is a key track here. It's kinda like Sabbath's dirgey "L.A. Blues". Still the songs are very strong here.

There isn't a Sabbath album among the first 8 that sucks. Technical Ecstasy is the worst of the 8 only that it's merely good. It does have a handful of their worst songs of that era, though. ("Rock N Roll Doctor", "Gypsy" -- even though "Gypsy" has good parts in it.)

I like the first three Ozzy solo albums, but the best one is as good as Technical Ecstasy at best.

And I love "It's Alright". Go Bill!

You know what I mean by "weird": It's like they were listening to a lot of Queen or something.

Althought that's a real simplification.

Good post above, Mackro. I always thought the first half of Gypsy was great (fantastic riff), the second half some of the worst shit Sabbath has ever done.

Never Say Die is great.

..and Cheap Trick, and Thin Lizzy, and pretty much many 70s hard rock and/or poprock bands well established by then, yeah

if you see a 1978-era Sabbath show, you'll see Bill Ward invented the "crusty" look, easily.

(ok, fine, "crusty" is def. Bad Brains fashion worship. Bill Ward dreads just coincided.)

It's that time of the year!

Why thank you for the prompt!

YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

This is one of my favourite Sabbath songs ever! Ward sounds as if he's about to destroy his drum kit, Ozzy sounds incredibly pissed off and superb riffage throughout. Sabotage remains an underrated piece of work, but some days it's my favourite Sabbath LP.

Great song, though for a while I was irritated by the end where it gets all groovy/hippified.
― Ian John50n (orion)

OMFG I love this part! I used to play bass many incarnations ago and I always got frustrated when covering this in one of the bands I played with, because we never played the acoustic hippie funk coda. Balearic Sabbath is great and I wont hear otherwise.

all my Black Sabbath remasters

o this has been? my copy sounds like shit compared to the others

Ditto Moka
And that “day in the life” style transition from heavy to groovy

Mellow Sabbath is some of the best Sabbath
There are worse ways to pass the late afternoon than to put “solitude” on repeat

"we sail through endless skies" my mellow sabbath album

https://open.spotify.com/user/matthelgeson/playlist/6KAiYTobROEmgOk0uDMQJh

Veddy nice

I still give that one a spin every now and then!
(xpost)

A month late for the usual revive but

YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*air drums*

Valentine's Day="Symptom of the Universe, A LOVE THAT NEVER DIES!!!"

Fan made doc on Sabotage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8c4TKrIOo

Oh that’s right it’s January!

YEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That was actually quite informative about the band's management troubles, and explaining the cover. I don't hear any Mellotron on "Supertzar", though, just on "Megalomania".

Nice to see you Ned!

Yeah the manager stuff was mad interesting
Made me appreciate the wrath of the writ that much more

that was cool - ditto on the management stuff and "the writ"

Always great to hear north americans attempt to deploy (and explain) British slang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zFfh6FsDws

Imagine putting on side b and hearing the thrill of it all for the first time

the way I feel is the way I am

what a killer record this is

every time i think it can't get any better, some new idea comes along and blows me away. it's somehow kaleidoscopic without being eclectic, deeply heavy without being plodding, manages to maintain peaks of airiness and psychedelic mysticism without losing the plot. just an amazing record.

\m/