10 Perfect Albums With Dark Backstories

The core of any good Black Sabbath album has always been Tony Iommi. Regardless of who's singing for the band at any given time, the vibe of everything dark and depressing about Sabbath's music pretty much lives and dies on Tony making something a little bit grimy, twisting his bluesy licks into something that Satan would have approved of. And right as they were going in to cut Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Tony put his best foot forward and came through with...nothing.

For the first time, the Riff Lord came up with absolutely nothing for a Sabbath record, so the band decided they needed a change of scenery. Taking over an abandoned castle to woodshed some new songs, every member of the group remembers the demented moments happening on the grounds, like when they saw a hooded figure walking through the halls, only to be told by one of the workers that that was the castle's resident ghost. While it was all in good fun at first, the band became so paranoid that Bill Ward even kept a knife under his pillow just for peace of mind.

In those dark dungeons though, Tony came through with some of the most aggressive Sabbath songs ever recorded, with the title track sounding like the building blocks for what thrash metal would become just a few years after the fact. Sabbath could still deliver some of the greatest music of their career...they just needed a little bit of help from the other side.