Bang cover

Bang

Released

You can’t accuse them of not making a strong first impression. Philadelphians with a fondness for Black Sabbath and pop art, Bang’s first (released) album starts with a song about Christians getting thrown to the lions by the Romans and ends with a song about Native Americans having essentially the same thing done to them two millennia later by the US government. Their intended first record was a concept album about the death of the American Dream. Big shock. “Questions” actually charted in the top 100 at the time, and it’s easy to hear why: it takes Sab in their hippie mode to its catchiest extreme. Otherwise, they were one of the earlier bands to realize that what made Ozzy and co. so powerful was how they used their volume to articulate their politics.

Jeff Treppel

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