10 Metal Songs That Are Ridiculously Long

In the early days of Black Sabbath, they were never really concerned about creating songs that would just last for the length of a pop song. These guys were born and bred in the blues tradition, and they were just as comfortable taking the initial ideas they had and stretching them into long jams, like on the end of their first album where they stretch out their cover of the song Warning. When you have more experience under your belt though, you start to wonder about the possibilities of what can be done in those long stretches.

After already returning to form with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage was where Sabbath started to double down on the more progressive side of their sound, with Megalomania being one of the centerpieces of the project. Having spent some time working with prog rock legend Rick Wakeman, Tony Iommi’s eye for guitar riffs got a little bit more epic in scope, making songs that felt like they were trying to charm demons out of the crypt. There are also some strange production techniques to be found here, like when they have the loop of Ozzy’s voice swirling around your head before he finally comes back in for the first verse.

Even though Symptom of the Universe gets most of the praise from this era of Sabbath, this is the kind of statement that they should be known for more these days. Because without songs like these in their arsenal, there’s a good chance that metal wouldn’t have dipped their toes into the world of progressive rock nearly as often.