Black Sabbath fans have long been aware of the existence of demo tapes made by the quartet during their brief spell under the bland moniker Earth, shortly before they evolved into the behemoth that founded heavy metal. Earth – and its earlier incarnation, the Polka Tulk Blues Band – belonged to the British blues boom of Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After and their ilk, which counterintuitively was also the last generation of U.K. bands to follow the Beatles’ career path by sharpening their skills with a tour of duty in the clubs of Hamburg. Black Sabbath recorded their foundational debut album in October of 1969, and Earth recorded these demos just months earlier, so if you’re a Sabbath fan or even if you’ve just heard the band’s…

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