Welcome to Metal Lair’s Seven Deadly Songs weekly feature where we curate music from the past and the present for your listening pleasure.
Written By Kevin McSweeney
This week, our thoughts turn to the men from the English midlands who started it all, the mighty Black Sabbath, without whom our website would be known simply as Lair. In honour of the fact that their eponymously-titled debut album, and therefore heavy metal itself, turned 55 years old in February, and in light of the fact that they will be bidding a fond farewell to performing live with Ozzy Osbourne in July, we’ve decided to take a look at just how influential the Birmingham band has been. So, here’s a selection of the finest covers by just seven of the innumerable bands to have recorded versions of songs by the founding fathers of this music we love so much.
Type O Negative – Paranoid
Type O Negative were certainly never ones to do things by the book, and as is the case with all of their covers, they made this version of the title track from Sabbath’s second album their own, rendering it virtually unrecognisable in comparison to the original in the process. While all metal stems from Sabbath, it is perhaps doom metal that bears their blueprint most of all, yet the Brooklyn band have take one of shortest and most upbeat songs in their back catalogue and turned it into a 7-minute-plus funereal epic that kind of out-Sabbaths Sabbath, with a little bit of Iron Man and some self-penned additional extras thrown in for good measure. It was the only official studio-recorded song on the spoof live album The Origin of the Feces. It was actually TON’s version of Black Sabbath that was cited as Bill Ward’s favourite track from the 1994 album Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath, on which numerous artists provided versions of their favourite Sabbath songs, but this tribute is better still as far as we’re concerned.
Biohazard – After Forever
It might seem absolutely incomprehensible to young lovers of loud music, and quite rightly so, that punks and metalheads were once completely at odds with each other. The genres were thought to be mutually exclusive until Motorhead came along and fused together the best elements of both, paving the way for the extreme metal of the 1980s in the process. So it was particularly gratifying to see NYHC legends Biohazard, despite their punk lineage, paying tribute to the original metal band with their version of the second track from Master of Reality, which was released on Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath. It’s a song that suits them well, with the addition of their customary football terrace-style backing vocals and china cymbal-heavy stompalong grooves being a surprisingly complimentary addition to the mix.
Pantera – Planet Caravan
It really wasn’t the obvious choice, you know. This cover was included on Pantera’s 1994 album Far Beyond Driven and, while it is unsurprising that the Texan titans should wish to pay homage to Black Sabbath, we might have expected them to opt for something a little bit heavier than this mellow, psychedelic number. It was so at odds with the crushingly powerful groove metal that they were churning out in the early 90s that they felt compelled to offer an explanation in the liner notes, in order to justify its inclusion. We’ll let Phil Anselmo take it from here:
“This is a Black Sabbath song off of the Paranoid album. So don’t freak out on us. We did the song because we wanted to. It has nothing to do with the integrity of our direction. It’s a tripped out song. We think you’ll dig it. If you don’t, don’t fucking listen to it. Thanks. On behalf of the rest of Pantera, Phil Anselmo ’94.”
We did listen to it, and we certainly dug it, Phil.
Danzig – N.I.B.
This version of one of the standout tracks from Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut is lifted from Danzig’s 2015 album of covers entitled Skeletons. Glenn Danzig was known to perform Sabbath covers as a young musician before his time with The Misfits, and this song in particular seems tailor-made for the mournful croon of the Evil Elvis. Also, this constitutes former Type O Negative drummer Johnny Kelly’s second appearance on the list, as he performed on the Drab Four’s version of Paranoid, despite all other drum credits on The Origin of the Feces going to former Life of Agony stick wielder Sal Abruscato.
Sepultura – Symptom of the Universe
Sepultura were wearing their influences on their sleeves when they recorded their version of this thrashiest of Sabbath songs from the 1975 album Sabotage. It was included on the Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath album, which was released in 1994, when the Brazilians were touring Chaos AD. Their version bears a striking resemblance to Slave New World, the third track on their fifth album, though the Latin-flavoured coda perhaps hinted at things to come when they turned to their South American musical heritage two years later on Roots.
Faith No More – War Pigs
Just as Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album would prove to be the catalyst for so many other bands to tune their guitars down and distort their amps, it could be argued that Faith No More’s 1989 album The Real Thing was the catalyst for much of the alternative metal that emerged in the 1990s. Their version of War Pigs, released as a bonus track on the San Francisco band’s aforementioned third album, is a rendition that barely deviates from the blueprint of the original from Sabbath’s second album Paranoid. This is most unlike such an experimental and innovative band, but the song is certainly a great vehicle for the soaring and majestic vocals of the newly-arrived Mike Patton.
Cannibal Corpse – Zero the Hero
This is the only cover on our list that is not a version of a song originally sung by Ozzy Osbourne, as it is drawn from the 1983 album Born Again, which featured Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame on lead vocals, and Gillan’s celestial shrieks are in stark contrast to the guttural growls of Chris Barnes, which seem to emanate from the bowels of infernal underworld. Vocals aside, it’s a surprisingly faithful replica of the original from the death metal stalwarts, who recorded their version of it as a b-side to the single release of their signature track, Hammer Smashed Face.
