It’s strange to remember Black Sabbath as a pop group. Not that the original heavy metal band were ever bubblegum; from the very first clang of the church bell that opened their self-titled album, the boys from Birmingham were making music more evil than anyone else’s. But on their debut and the soon-to-follow Paranoid, Sabbath were still establishing themselves, and part of that meant writing radio hits and trying to get onto Top Of The Pops. Though Black Sabbath had already thrust heavy metal in front of the world’s gaze, they hadn’t immersed themselves in the doom of it all. That changed with 1971’s Master Of Reality. Confrontational, immersive, and somehow tuned down even lower than its predecessors, Sabbath’s third full-length album is where fairweather listener...
