Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

In 1973, Sabbath was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, both literally and figuratively creating the conception of the rock star.  Black Sabbath could do no wrong at this point, every album they put out birthed a couple million guitarists and laid the concrete down for new musical attitudes.  Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the fifth album of their colossal run throughout the first half of the seventies.  They were consistently writing, riffing, touring, and doing druggos during their golden age.  After Vol 4, Sabbath hit a writing snag and found themselves worn out from the typical rock star lifestyle.  So they packed up their goat horns and coke and headed to Clearwell Castle to gain inspiration by sleeping in the dungeon.  Apparently it worked because Iommi came up with the riff to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in that damp hell-hole and the band found their gothic mojo once again.  Sabbath ditches a lot of their ideas from Vol 4 in exchange for new material and instrumentation.  Synths and spacey strings find their way onto the songs; prog and Sabbath make for strange bedfellows on paper, but then they just went and did it, never compromising the riffs and weirdo lyrics about death.  Also Rick Wakeman did the keys on Fluff for some beer.  Somehow, this album manages to be a lot more positive than previous Sabbath albums, the tracks are upbeat and there is an almost tropical sensibility in the song structures.  I dunno, it still slays through power chord heaven.  Killing Yourself to Live is punk as fuck.  For their fifth album, Black Sabbath don’t lose slack, they snort it up their nose and spew out something from another dimension.