The 11 Greatest BLACK SABBATH Riffs EVER!
Published on 12 February 2025
You’ve heard the news by now: Black Sabbath are back for one last show! This Summer, Ozzy, Iommi and co will appear one final time, clad in black and ready to conduct their unholy mass once more for a rabid audience at Villa Park, Birmingham (click through for all the details of the Black Sabbath Back to The Beginning event!). It’s the guitar event of the year without question, with all manner of metal titans from Metallica to Mastodon getting involved. The very earth will shake with riffs.
The greatest riffs ever written!
Do you know, there are actually some individuals out there in the world who think it's okay to ask the horrifying question: “Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath?”
What is wrong with these people?
The only correct answer of course is “both”, but when it comes to riffs, there is no doubting who wears the crown here. Tony Iommi is the dark lord of the riff, and other opinions on the subject will not be entertained. Yes, I love Immigrant Song too (remember I said ‘both’?) but let’s face it: Sabbath have seen entire genres of band forming in response to their doom-laden sound.
In honour of this, I’ve decided to compile the definitive (in my opinion) top ten of Black Sabbath riffs. From across the band’s career, I’m picking only the greatest, most ground-rattling riffs to include in this blog. I won’t necessarily be putting this into any order of merit (though the first one is my personal favourite), and I also won’t be pandering to popularity: in short, Sabbath have so many better riffs than Paranoid, so you won’t be seeing that here!
Now, it’s time for the countdown. Close your windows to keep out the encroaching frigid cold, bolt the doors against unwanted guests and hang up your signs to ward off the Evil Eye: we are in Black Sabbath territory now, and nighttime is just about here…
The 11 Greatest Black Sabbath Riffs
Hole In The Sky
This is Black Sabbath’s best riff. Convince me otherwise! This cut from the Sabotage album has just got so much swing and attitude about it, it drops like a depth charge, and it’s followed by another riff straight after that is almost as excellent.
One of the coolest things about this riff is how Butler and Iommi play slightly different versions of the same notes: Butler is right on the beat, starting on beat one of every bar, whilst Iommi lets his octave notes sustain into the next bar, given a lurching feel to the music. Awesome.
Also, is this the most genuinely crazy Ozzy has ever sounded?
Supernaut
If Hole in the Sky is Sabbath’s best riff, then Supernaut comes in right behind at numbers two and three, since both riffs within are stupendous. The song itself seems like a gleeful excuse to just smash out that main riff, with Bill Ward’s drumming blasting out wilder and freer than ever.
The second, sliding verse riff that Ozzy sings over is maybe even better than the main signature riff, and together they punch like a heavyweight boxer. It’s the kind of song you can imagine scoring a crazy, defiant car chase scene in a movie, and the return of the verse riff after the extended percussion break is the stuff of goosebumps. Absolutely thrilling.
Zero the Hero
How many times has this class riff been ripped off? By the time I’d heard this tune from Sabbath’s Born Again era (with ex Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan), I felt like I’d heard the riff a bunch of times. This is often the case with genius guitar riffs, but invariably the original is the best, and this is a brute!
We’re witnessing a trend here now, because the song begins with an excellent doomy riff (and some shrieking vocal acrobatics) before the tune settles into its slithering, subterranean self. Key change modulations and double-tracked guitar parts keep this tune mobile and an acidic lyric (“Accept the fact that you’re second rate: life will be easy for you”) is as tough as the music. Ozzy is on most of the great Sabbath tunes, but not them all!
Black Sabbath
It’s the band’s signature tune and the most iconic cut from their creepy debut record (best album cover EVER!). Black Sabbath begins with rumbles of thunder, stormy rain and a bell ringing balefully in the night…and then the band crash in. It’s one of those musical moments that are so perfectly judged that they could never be played or heard in any other way.
Black Sabbath’s main riff is very simple, and its inherent evilness is due to the use of a flattened 5th chord - otherwise known as a tritone or the devil’s chord - as the basis for the music.
One very cool piece of trivia for you: the song’s massively creepy lyrics (“What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me”) are based on a real experience. Lyricist Geezer Butler at the time was deeply interested in the occult, to the point where his bedroom was painted black and covered in crucifixes and candles. After reading an obscure Latin occult text that Ozzy had given him, Butler retired for the night and propped the book up on a shelf next to his bed. Upon waking, he got quite a fright: a tall black figure was standing at the foot of his bed staring at him. The figure vanished into thin air, and after checking the shelf, realised the book was nowhere to be found.
True story? Who knows, but it’s a GREAT story!
Sweet Leaf
It seems somehow diminishing when you learn that this mighty riff is from a song about loving cannabis, but that’s the mundane truth. Given how influential the band have been on the stoner rock scene, it’s actually very appropriate!
This is a great example of Sabbath’s sound after they decided to tune down to C#. Their first two records were in standard E, but Iommi’s famous finger injuries were posing problems, and the solution was slacker strings! This inadvertently made the band sound darker and heavier than ever, so perhaps some diabolical provenance was at work all along…
If you want to hear this riff in a pretty different context, check out the Beastie Boys’ Rhymin & Stealin’, which samples both this and Bonzo’s immortal drum break from Led Zep’s When the Levee Breaks. Genius idea!
Symptom of the Universe
Does the middle section of this song have the heaviest riff ever? Nobody does ‘doom-laden’ quite like Sabbath, and Symptom of the Universe displays this more than most. If H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu ever needed a soundtrack, then the humongous, subterranean riffing here would be an apt approximation of that mile-high, betentacled beast from the depths.
Mainly written by Iommi, the jam section at the end was a studio improv that made the cut for the final album.
Tomorrow’s Dream
How good is Iommi’s buzzing tone on this tune? He was really on fire on the Vol.4 album, which also gave us Supernaut and Snowblind. As you’ll have noticed throughout this blog, most of the great Sabbath riff songs actually have a couple of excellent riffs per tune, and Tomorrow’s Dream is no exception. It’s a one-two punch of class from team Iommi/Butler here!
Hot take: Vol.4 may actually be Sabbath’s best album. Have another listen and see what you think!
Snowblind
Another prime riff monster from Vol,4, Snowblind is all about that killer verse riff. Simple, direct and providing a very cool counterpoint to Ozzy’s lead vocal, Snowblind is one of those tunes you just can’t argue with.
As with Sweet Leaf, the band are singing about a certain substance (a different one this time), from a perspective of experience, shall we say? Fun fact: the band wanted to call the album ‘Snowblind’, but the record company were having none of it due to the blatant drugs reference.
Also, this is one of the most covered of all Sabbath tunes. No wonder!
Iron Man
“IIIII AM IIIIIIIIRON MAAAAAAAN”
Between that mad vocal and the seasick guitar bends, this is some way to start a song! Thankfully, when the riff shows up, it doesn’t let us down: it’s one of Iommi's most celebrated riffs, and rightly so.
Personally speaking, I’m less of a fan of the tunes where Ozzy just copies the guitar riffs with his vocal melody, but Iron Man gets away with a lot due to its sheer swagger. Based on Ted Hughes’ famous story, Iron Man is pretty much what you think it’s about: a great big robot. Not clever, maybe, but have you written riffs like this?
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
One of their best riffs, and one of their best songs, with an interesting subversion of the usual dynamic tricks here: the verses are loud and raucous, whereas the chorus is quieter and more chill. Overall, it still smashes like a sledgehammer, but with some added sweetness. Half way through though, a brilliantly evil change occurs in the song, and I defy new listeners to see it coming!
Rather excellently, these riffs were written by Iommi inside a castle (Clearwell Castle in the forest of Dean) where the band had retreated after a particularly narcotic-rich tour supporting their Vol.4 record. From Ozzy’s autobiography I Am Ozzy:
"Tony had been doing coke literally for days – we all had, but Tony had gone over the edge. I mean, that stuff just twists your whole idea of reality. You start seeing things that aren't there. And Tony was gone. Near the end of the gig he walked off stage and collapsed."
Take it easy now, boys!
Children of the Grave
When they weren’t writing tunes about satan and giant robots, Black Sabbath were actually quite into their anti-war songs. Alongside the classic War Pigs (it nearly made the list, okay?) and Electric Funeral, this one is one of their best known.
Children of the Grave doesn’t mess with metaphors or similes when making its point, either, as evidenced by the lyrics:
"Must the world live in the shadow of atomic fear?/ Can they win the fight for peace or will they disappear?
So, you children of the world/ Listen to what I say/ If you want a better place to live in/ Spread the word today/ Show the world that love is still alive, you must be brave/ Or you children of today are children of the grave"
Riff-wise, it’s a solid gold effort from Iommi and Butler, aided by next-level percussion from Bill Ward that adds an animalistic urgency to the song. Again, the rug is pulled out from under our feet half way through the song, when an almost Holst-like riff brings extra dread to the atmosphere.
There is Only One Lord of the Riffs
There is only one Lord of the Riffs and his name is Tony. With injured fingers, a black SG and crucifixes aplenty, Tony Iommi wrote the grimoire on heavy riffing. He is yet to be bested.
Iommi also puts paid to any debates on string gauge, tunings, amp settings and the rest of it: it’s all about intention, attitude and execution.
Learn from the master today: stick on a bunch of Black Sabbath and focus on the riffs.
