Black Widow: Sacrifice: Definitive Collectors Edition

Satanic proggers’ debut revisited, with added nudity.

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There is a distinct whiff of Spinal Tap about the Black Widow story. The Leicester psych-rockers released their debut album as a soul band called Pesky Gee! just a year previously, but saw a lucrative angle in switching to satanically themed proto-prog.

Nude dancers at their live shows and a Tap-esque hit single called Come To The Sabbat (‘Come to the Sabbat, Satan’s there!’) helped this debut album achieve brief tabloid notoriety, if not big sales.

The album has other briefly diverting moments (such as the Deep Purple-ish title track) and some laughable ones (the bossa nova jazz intro to Seduction – the devil does cabaret!).

This reissue also includes a live performance DVD that shows they pulled off a pretty convincing beelzebub-bothering live act, culminating in the stage floor ‘sacrifice’ of an unnamed and increasingly unclothed German Fräulein in the name of Old Nick. Ye gods!/o:p

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.