20 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time

2. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)

This is it. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.

In the beginning there were four Birmingham lads who would shape the future of heavy metal forever. Four lads who would take bluesy rock 'n' roll and paint it black.

Black Sabbath - the song, the album, the band - was just about the darkest thing to be churned out of the British music scene, and was met with generally lukewarm reactions. Now, some forty-odd years later, it stands as the gold standard for early heavy metal, the precursor to all of this throbbing, gritty music that we now hold so dear.

Much of Black Sabbath's brooding debut album was still heavily blues-oriented, but there was a new sound here, a sense of foreboding - Ozzy's addled warbling was as tainted as the masterful licks being spun on Tony Iommi's electric battle axe; a smooth, smokey sound that was dark like tar-black honey. The occult imagery of eternal metal standards like N.I.B and title track Black Sabbath - sitting alongside more upbeat jam-sessions The Wizard and Evil Woman - showed a band who could whip up more killer melodies before breakfast than most bands would in their lifetimes.

There's no getting around it, this was the album which would become the foundation for just about everything else on this list. But, while history has it's place here and Black Sabbath needs to be honoured among the greats, we can't quite label it the greatest metal album of all time...