A-side "Hard Road" Length 6:29 | Genre Heavy metal | |
Released July 28, 1975 (Album)
October 1978 (Single) Recorded Early 1975 at Morgan Studios in London, England, UK Label Vertigo (UK)
Warner Bros. (US) | ||
"Symptom of the Universe" is a song by the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, from their 1975 album Sabotage. The song was an early influence on the development of thrash metal.
Contents
Overview
"Symptom of the Universe" was composed largely by guitarist Tony Iommi with lyrics by Geezer Butler. The song's closing passage, very disparate from the rest of the song, evolved from an in-studio jam. It was created spontaneously in a single day and the decision was made to incorporate it into the song.
Live versions of the track can be heard on the albums Past Lives, Cross Purposes Live and Live... Gathered in Their Masses, as well as the Never Say Die! concert video. It is also the opening track on Ozzy Osbourne's 1982 live album, Speak of the Devil.
The song is also featured in the video games Skate 2 and Brütal Legend.
Musical style
The main riff to "Symptom of the Universe" is considered to be a structural and sonic predecessor to thrash metal, a heavy metal subgenre which emerged in the early 1980s. Tony Iommi said of the song "It starts with an acoustic bit. Then it goes into the up-tempo stuff to give it that dynamic, and it does have a lot of changes to it, including the jam at the end."