Did BLACK SABBATH Really Invent Occult Rock? OPETH’s MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT Says This Obscure Band Beat Them To It

Few songs evoke fear quite like “Black Sabbath,” the first track from the band’s debut album released in 1970. This song – along with the album it debuted – is frequently recognized as a cornerstone of heavy metal, in terms of both sound and visual elements. For that time period, it’s difficult to envision anything more ominous than the song’s opening, featuring the eerie sounds of whistling winds and thunder, the toll of a distant bell, and Ozzy‘s haunting voice breaking the silence with that memorable first verse, all underscored by that iconic guitar riff that we all recognize so well.

Black Sabbath took rock into shadowy new territory, embracing eerie atmospherics, horror-inspired lyrics, and occult themes that had never been explored so overtly before. Metal’s long-running fascination with the dark side and the forces of Satan had begun, and Sabbath is almost unanimously credited as the pioneers in merging rock with occult themes.

However, Mikael Åkerfeldt, frontman of Swedish renowned prog metallers Opeth, isn’t convinced that is really the case. Speaking to Metal Hammer, Åkerfeldt pointed to another act – one that had already woven Satanic themes into their music months before Black Sabbath‘s debut hit the shelves.

That band was Coven, a Chicago-based group formed in 1966 and led by teenage singer Jinx Dawson. Unlike their British counterparts, Coven didn’t just dabble in occult imagery – they fully embraced it. Their debut album, Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, arrived in June 1969, six months ahead of Black Sabbath‘s first release.

Songs like “Coven In Charing Cross” and “Pact With Lucifer” made their thematic direction clear, but nothing was as blatant as the album’s 13-minute spoken-word ritual, “Satanic Mass” – a track that left no doubt about the band’s commitment to their dark aesthetic. In a bizarre twist, the album even contained a song titled “Black Sabbath”, and Coven‘s bassist was named Oz Osbourne  – an eerie coincidence that only adds to the mystery of the band’s legacy.

For Åkerfeldt, Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls – not Black Sabbath‘s debut – is the true “ground zero” of occult rock: “This was the first album of its kind,” he explained. “I can’t think of any other band like them from that time. The whole Satanic thing was, of course, pioneering. Black Sabbath only really had one song on the topic of the occult. Coven had a 13-minute spoken-word black mass on the B-side of their album.”

While the music itself had more in common with the psychedelic sounds of Jefferson Airplane than the crushing doom of Black Sabbath, its lyrical content was anything but free-spirited.

“There’s some great songs on there, like ‘White Witch Of Rose Hall’. And the lyrics are intriguing. They’re like brief horror novels. It had a strong hippie vibe with some quite unpleasant lyrics,” Åkerfeldt noted. “The vocal delivery by Jinx Dawson is second to none, and there’s some super-nice vocal harmonies on there.”

“It’s an odd record all in all,” Åkerfeldt reflected. “Most odd records need some time to mature until people realize it’s a potential landmark. They probably made a bit of an impact in the middle of the Vietnam protest song scene and the generic hippie stuff about getting high and making love. And it’s refreshing still to this day. Why is it such a landmark? The short answer would probably be: Satan and Jinx Dawson.”

Coven would go on to release two more albums – 1971’s Coven and 1974’s Blood On The Snow – but it’s their debut that remains a cult classic. So, while Black Sabbath may have been the band to define heavy metal, they weren’t the first to bring the occult themes into rock music. That title, it seems, belongs to Coven – the forgotten pioneers who made a deal with the devil before anyone else.