Tonight @ First Unitarian Church, 7:30 p.m. Preview here (via Youtube.)
No surprise, right? Wrong. Even after Blessed Black Wings marked metal’s resurgence into the mainstream along with Mastodon and Isis, it seems that they’ve joined the flotsam and jetsam.
For me, Blessed Black Wings remains an album for these times: the oily guitars revive Sabbath’s Satanic moral clarity, libertarian leanings and desperate message, all of which are crucial antidotes to the xenophobic theocracies consolidating power around the globe.
Rest assured that the post-scripts are welcome nonetheless.
Prepare yourself for a sweaty, stoned night! Let’s revisit the argument:
High on Fire — “Brother in the Wind”
Thrones — “Epicus Doomicus Bumpitus”
dude, Sabbath’s ‘moral clarity’ is not Satanic in nature. Read the lyrics, Ozzy’s a Jesus boy.
While I’m familiar with the Bangs’ article to this effect, I always took him to mean lowercase catholic, to be interpreted as ecumenical. “War Pigs” takes on a ferocious Catholic position, raging like a papal bull. That said, I prefer the hellfire and brimstone that Ozzy spews as loosely Satanic diatribes, even if he never fell in with Anton Levey. Mr. Crowley, on the other hand, was the head of the Satanic Church, but that wasn’t a Sabbath song…
‘Could it be you’re afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above
They should realise before they criticise
That God is the only way to love.’
Black Sabbath, “After Forever” (1971)
you can prefer his songs as after dinner mints, but Ozzy is no Satanist, or even satanist.