In the Shadow of Sabbath Pt.1
As the title suggests, a number of lesser known bands were being influenced greatly by the dark occult musings of Black Sabbath and here are some that released material between 1969 and 1972. Some of these albums I already know, whilst others I’ve recently discovered whilst making and deciding on my year entry lists. New York based band
Bang have already been featured in my “
Also Check This One Out…….” Section. But another band that emerged at the time of Black Sabbath were the Leicester based band
Black Widow who by 1972 had already put out three studio albums of which their debut
Sacrifice stands as the best of the three and certainly was the darkest of the three and if anything the band's sound was influenced by folky foundations. Their best known song was “Come to the Sabbat” then there was the very interesting Scottish based band
Iron Claw. Much like
Bang they started out as a covers band but were blown away by Black Sabbath and finally released their debut album in 1971 but it never got an official release until 2009. This band displayed in my mind a sound that is still relevant today. Sure it was based around the blues and heavy jamming, but the heavy proto-doom metal of songs like “Skullcrusher” are still very relevant to metal today. Then there was
Lucifer Was from Norway who often drew comparisons with Jethro Tull because of their flute, but this was a band also heavily influenced by the slower to mid tempos of Black Sabbath. The band are perfectly encapsulated on the song “Darkness” and I think this song is the best of the four below and finally but not least there was
Blues Creation from Japan, who like the Flower Travellin’ Band demonstrated to us that ‘The Land of the Rising Sun’ was dishing out some rather offbeat heavy bands who loved to give us a whole host of juice heavy acid style jams, just check out “Atomic Bombs Away” sadly the video sound is not the best quality.