For many children of the 60s, it all began with the opening tones of a song by a rock band that until a few weeks earlier had called themselves Earth. Just three little tones. But three tones that instantly instilled such a sense of dread and darkness that the minds and imaginations of a generation founded on peace and love suddenly discovered their thoughts turning not to Flower Power and Love-ins, but to the darker side. To the realm of “evil.” The realm of Diabolus in Musica–the Devil in Music.
The introductory album by England’s most bad-ass bar band Black Sabbath, the self-titled, Black Sabbath, hit the streets in the U.S. on June 1, 1970. But having been released four months earlier in the UK on Friday, February 13, bootleg copies of the album had already made their way to turntables all across America, with a new direction in music already apparent as it wafted in sinister-sounding waves from garages and basements all across the country. With the Devil’s Triad the first thing jumping out at you–and it actually felt as though it did–this LP circulated among the cool and hip like a welcome venereal disease we’d all catch eventually anyway. Read More . . .
