Black Sabbath is widely credited as the founding band of heavy metal music. Emerging from working-class Birmingham, they created a dark, doom-laden sound built on Tony Iommi's distorted downtuned guitar riffs, Geezer Butler's occult-inflected lyrics, and Ozzy Osbourne's wailing vocals. Their occult imagery was largely theatrical; several members were Christian.
Invented heavy metal as a distinct musical genre; established the foundational vocabulary of doom, power chord riffing, occult imagery, and dark lyrical themes; their first two albums created the sonic template that defines metal to this day.
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