Experiencing Black Sabbath

November 6, 2017
In this informative academic look at the music of Black Sabbath, composer and music professor Stolz undertakes a song-by-song analysis of many of the band’s recordings, from its 1970 self-titled debut to its The End tour in 2016. Stolz meticulously explores what made Sabbath’s music so heavy: the “frightening” sound of the band’s reliance on the tritone (the interval between two notes long known by classical composers as the “devil in music”), which was heavily used in the blues-influenced music of early Sabbath. He also explains how the “dreadfully slow” tempos made many songs feel “doomy.” Stolz expertly shows how, in their later albums, Sabbath pursued a progressive sound by incorporating tempo changes, dissonance, and variety of rhythms. While Stolz’s analysis is insightful, his descriptions can be overly detailed: writing about “Megalomania,” he explains how “the tempo picks up slightly (less than 8 percent) for the postchorus riff (2:12), just enough to increase momentum into the guitar solo.” This is a volume for die-hard Sabbath fans.