10 Best Acoustic Metal Songs

No one was really asking Black Sabbath to go for a softer approach. The whole appeal of Sabbath in the early days was a bunch of bludgeoning rock tunes that helped birth what we know today as heavy metal. Even though these demonic riff masters had plenty of classic tunes at their disposal, the real musical chops came out in between the chunky riffs.

While many people point to Planet Caravan off of Paranoid as the group's first downtempo moment, the fractured beauty gets amplified even more on Orchid. Seeing how most of Master of Reality is a pure exercise in stone rock glory, having a little acoustic section to start off the second side of the record is just what the listener needs to prepare themselves for Round 2. Instead of the typical psychedelic musings you would get on Caravan, this song shows Tony Iommi strapping on an acoustic guitar and playing in an almost classical style.

In just over a minute of runtime, those acoustic picking sections cascade over your eardrums, almost like it's trying to bandage you up from the beating you already received from songs like Sweet Leaf and Children of the Grave.

So the next time you discount Black Sabbath as being the lords of doom metal, just throw on something like this to see the mellower side of hard rock.