ABSTRACT

This chapter recognizes the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) bands in the work of Black Sabbath not only a unique set of musical and aesthetic codes, but also the potential to build and expand those conceptual devices. From this view, the work of those bands may be seen to represent a second evolutionary stage in heavy metal marked by a conflation of Sabbathian and NWOBHM concepts. This is entirely significant in that heavy metal from the early 1980s onwards is marked by a realignment of that same conflation of elements into a more defined model. The NWOBHM bands, therefore, not only recognised the rabid power of Black Sabbath's musical syntax to express their anti-Christian and antiwar themes, they also found new ways of increasing the intensity of that rage. The chapter also explains to the interesting and enlightening journey that started out with the intention of making connections between Black Sabbath and the generic forms that they initiated.