Black Sabbath: Paranoid Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
The original line-up of Black Sabbath – vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler, and drummer Bill Ward – breed a brew of blues-rock unlike anything the world had heard before, and in the process, birthed a genre. The back-story of 1970’s Paranoid will be unveiled, with live footage and in-depth interviews from the band and their original engineer.
"Black Sabbath: Paranoid" arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment. The disc contains approximately forty three minutes of deleted footage (interviews). In English, with optional English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch and Japanese subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.
Ozzy Osbourne
What Black Sabbath: Paranoid, the latest addition to Eagle Rock Entertainment's impressive catalog of music releases, offers is a variety of different interviews with the members of the band - Ozzy Osbourne (Vocals), Tony Iommi (Guitar), Terry "Geezer" Butler (Bass) and Bill Ward (Drums) - in which they recall how their greatest album came to exist. A number of different historians, journalists and professionals can also be heard commenting on the band's significant importance for the explosion of Heavy Metal in Europe and the rest of the world.
Black Sabbath: Paranoid is approximately one hour long and divided into eight chapters: Early Sabbath, War Pigs, Iron Man, Planet Caravan, Electric Funeral, Hand of Doom, Fairies Wear Boots, and Paranoid. Each chapter contains information about the band's maturation as well as the very specific type of sound they introduced with Paranoid. There are also detailed explanations about the structure of the music the band produced.
According to Tony, Terry, Ozzy and Bill no one expected Black Sabbath to become a monster band. When they returned from their first trip to Germany, where they performed in the legendary Star Club, everyone was shocked to discover that their first album had made an enormous amount of noise and gotten into the charts.
A lot of the comments Tony, Terry, Ozzy and Bill offer about how exactly Paranoid came to exist are very interesting – and strange. Apparently, no one really knew what they were going for; Tony was the driving force in the band but even he did not have a clear idea as to what was going on at the time; the music just happened.
Ozzy was the one experimenting with the lyrics, but Terry was the one who would polish them. Tony and Bill would then join in and make sure that they would work with the different melodies they had composed. Somewhere along the way, while experimenting with different riffs and lyrics, the guys also became interested in black magic.
In addition to the fascinating revelations about Black Sabbath's successes and obsessions, Black Sabbath: Paranoid also offers a few generic observations about the socio-political conditions in America at the time when the band was working on Paranoid. Different historians and journalists, for example, point out the type of effect the band's music had amongst those who sympathized with the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War.
Finally, there is a very interesting session in Black Sabbath: Paranoid with Tom Allom, the famous producer and sound engineer who was affiliated with Black Sabbath from 1970-1973, who literally deconstructs most of the songs in Paranoid at his studio. Allom carefully extracts Ozzy's vocals then Tony's solos and finally Terry and Bill's parts to demonstrate how simple yet incredibly effective their music is.
Note: In the supplemental features section on this Blu-ray disc there is approximately 43 minutes of deleted footage. All of it should have been left in Black Sabbath: Paranoid as it is just as informative and entertaining as what is left in the final cut.
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080i transfer, Black Sabbath: Paranoid arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment.
The original content looks terrific. Fine object detail is excellent, clarity pleasing and contrast levels stable. The color-scheme is also very impressive. Motion-judder is practically non-existent. The quality of the archival footage varies. Some of the concert footage, for example, has minor scratches. There are color pulsations and jitter as well. Obviously, however, considering the nature of the content, this should not be surprising. All in all, I think that the entire program looks very strong. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location).
There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: English LPCM 2.0. For the record, Eagle Rock Entertainment have provided optional English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch and Japanese subtitles for the main feature.
The English LPCM 2.0 is most appropriate for Black Sabbath: Paranoid. The overwhelming amount of the content in it is comprised of interviews and archival footage that I doubt would have benefited from the inclusion of a more elaborate audio track. Generally speaking, the dialog is crisp, clean, stable and very easy to follow. The archival footage also sounds fine. Finally, while viewing Black Sabbath: Paranoid I did not detect any pops or problematic dropouts to report in this review.
Note: All of the deleted footage can be seen with optional English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch and Japanese subtitles. (43 min, 1080i).
Deleted footage - deleted footage (interviews) from Black Sabbath: Paranoid:
-- Musical Influences
-- 1st U.S. Tour
-- No Return
-- Play In A Day The Tommy Way
-- Did Give Up The Day Job
-- Paranoid
-- Geezer's Bargain Basement
-- Rat Salad
-- Bill's Traps
-- Planet Caravan
-- The Backing Track Tapes
It goes without saying that anyone who has ever been interested in Black Sabbath and Heavy Metal should take a look at Black Sabbath: Paranoid. Eagle Rock Entertainment have once again put together a terrific package. I suspect that international fans would be pleased to know that the disc is Region-Free and the main feature and extras subtitled in a variety of different languages. RECOMMENDED.
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