“The songs, the artwork, the image, Ozzy’s sinister, untrained monotone, Iommi’s monolithic riffs. This was the emerging sound of heavy metal”: The complete history of Black Sabbath – lineup by lineup, album by album

Black Sabbath bathed in red stage lights as they play Madison Square Garden in the late '70s. Tony Iommi is in black. Ozzy Osbourne in white, with white tasselled sleeves and arms aloft.

Black Sabbath, in any of their incarnations across their 57-year career to date, are a force of nature. Inventing heavy metal and doom metal at a stroke, thrilling the wise with their epic fantasy lyrics and scaring the weak-witted with their satanic flirtations, Sabbath have somehow survived it all.

They’ve been through lows and highs – in commercial and narcotic senses – and have navigated periods of total unfashionability as well as others of godlike regard.