10 Darkest Hard Rock Albums Ever Made

10. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

No one can really put a number on when metal truly got started. As far back as the early '60s, bands like the Kinks and The Who were already pushing what the heavier side of the genre could do, exploring feedback while also pushing the distortion of electric guitars to their very limits. If there is one album that actually announced the arrival of something darker, it would have to be Black Sabbath's debut.

Playing the same type of bluesy licks coming from the British Invasion around the same time, something truly demonic happened once placed in the hands of Tony Iommi. Despite having some great phrases cribbed from blues, songs like the title track and The Wizard have an added layer of menace to them, almost as if the guitar is screaming in agony as Iommi chokes the life out of it.

This also marked a new turn for rock from a lyrical perspective, with Geezer Butler penning tales centered around occultist behaviors like the dark figure on the title track or namechecking Satan as the object of affection in the song NIB. Although metal would go through many different iterations past 1970, there are still thousands of black metal acts that still aren't able to crack the code that Sabbath birthed nearly half a century ago.