Black Sabbath
“Mhnhfpowrjdmppsvepjwm…<expletive>…<expletive>…asdjhndfvhafeuwe…<expletive>…JACK!!!! How do you work this bloody <expletive> thing? JAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!” – Ozzy Osbourne
“Your sauce will mix with ours, and we’ll make goulash, baby! Dio, time to go! You must give your cape and scepter to me, and a smaller one for KG! Go! Go! Dio! Dio!” – Tenacious D
“Well, they're not that bad, but that's about all the credit you can give them.” – Rolling Stone’s original review of Black Sabbath’s debut album
Albums Reviewed:
Black Sabbath, no matter your feelings about
them, whether you think anything with heavy guitars is bullshit, or Ozzy’s reality
show on MTV is crap (I actually think it’s hilarious, so eat me), or any other
misguided thing about this fine band, deserve your respect for one reason, and
one reason only: they singlehandedly provided about 90% of the material for Spinal Tap, which is one of the funniest movies of all time. Oh, and they invented heavy metal, which is
pretty cool too, I guess.
Yup, even though these guys stopping
being both groundbreaking and really good in 1975 and have released enough
useless albums to fill up entire record stores since then, I think that, when
you look at just the sheer number of bands that just WOULD NOT EXIST were it
not for Black Sabbath, they might be the second-most influential band of all
time (first being the Beatles), and the fact that 99.99999999% of these bands
are large, odoriferous piles of feces should not obscure the influence of the
Sabbathers. They just took blues-rock to
its logical extreme, completely abandoning any semblance of “blues” in the
genre, detuning their guitars about ten times lower than any band before them,
and going really slooooooooooooow. Now,
I’m not really a metalhead, and, to be blunt, diversity was never Black
Sabbath’s strong suit, so I can’t place these guys up in my “favorite bands of
all time” pantheon, but I still dig them a good bit. Their first six albums are all classics that
anyone whose tastes pass anywhere near
the world of metal has NO excuse
not to own, even if, except for that guitar tone (yeahhhhhhhh), I still don’t get all the hubbub about Master of Reality. The last two Ozzy albums aren’t so hot, but I
think they’re both pretty underrated myself, and the two albums the band made
with everyone’s favorite midget Ronnie James Dio are decent but unexciting. And I haven’t reviewed anything after the Dio
years because it’s all bullshit and no one would ever consider getting it
anyway, so what’s the point?
You all know that the guy on the far
right of your picture is the one and only Ozzy Osbourne, so I’ll just say his
voice started off pretty cool, then got too damn high (though nowhere “Geddy
Lee high”), but, even in its later helium stages, it’s neat and full of
personality. Plus, Ozzy’s just a cool
guy! His family’s reality show is the
only programming worth watching on MTV, too, not that it has much
competition. TRL!! Making the Video!!!! PUNK’D!!!
YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Not.
Anyway, the other three guys, from
left to right, are bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi
(who, if nothing else, was the first man to make a guitar sound like a rusty
piece of metal being dragged across a gravel pit, and thus deserves your
undivided attention and respect), and drummer Bill Ward, who might be the
ultimate “just the drummer” of all time.
And, if you’ve seen any recent pictures of him, he is now one of the
ugliest men in the world. I also may
very well have mixed Geezer and Bill up, by the way, seeing as how they look
fucking exactly the same in this picture.
And, onto the reviews!
Black Sabbath (1970)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Black Sabbath”
First of all, if nothing else, Black Sabbath might just win the prize for “BEST way EVER to open a band’s recording career.” Yes, the title track, or band title track, or whatever, “Black Sabbath,” might be the best song the band ever did (competition includes: those two songs on Sabotage everyone seems to dig and pretty much everything on Paranoid except “Rat Salad.” Oh, and “Supernaut,” too. That song rules!), and it also might be the scariest song I’ve ever heard, and most likely will continue to be the scariest song I’ve ever heard until I start reviewing grindcore death metal bands. Therefore, it will always be the scariest song I’ve ever heard. It starts off with about thirty seconds of spooky rain sounds and church bells going off in the distance, before *BOOM!!!!* goes that riff that contains only three notes, takes about ten seconds to play them, and nevertheless is 100 times better than any guitar riff written by any band in the last ten years. And the third note goes all “wah-wah-wah!!!!!” SCARY!!!!!!! And Ozzy goes “OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!” at the end of the first verse, and “OH, NO, NO, PLEASE GOD HELP ME!!!!!!!” at the end of the second verse. And, unlike many Sabbath songs (such as everything on Paranoid), IT’S NOT FUNNY. It’s SCARY!!!! OOOOOOOO, SCAAAAAAAARYY!!!!!! OOOOO!!!!!!!! SCAAAA-whoops.
I think I peed my pants!
OK, it’s not THAT scary. The fact that my boxer shorts are covered in urine right now has to do with my uncontrollable bladder problems, and nothing to do with the song itself. Still a definite creepfest, and still a super song. But what about the rest of the album? Well, judging from the rating I’ve stuck up there, you might think it’s not quite as good. And you know what? You’d be right. It’s not. Still good, though! But before I get to the remainder of this record, I’d like to address Ozzy’s voice. It’s low. This bothers me because, on every other album the band did, it’s all high and helium-like. But he has this low classic rock growl thing going on here, and, to tell you the truth, I dig it more than helium Ozzy. For instance, take a listen to “N.I.B.,” specifically that “your love for me has just gooooot to be real!” part. WHY COULDN’T YOU KEEP YOUR VOICE THAT LOW, OZZY!!!??? I dunno, maybe he was hoarse? The band recorded this album in twelve hours, so maybe Ozzy just had laryngitis that day. Who knows. You can really tell that they recorded it that quickly, too, and not because the production’s bad. It’s not. Good, full production. It’s just much more open and echoey than their other records. It almost gives off the feel of a live album, like they’re all set up in the studio around one microphone and they lay down the whole thing in two takes, then spend the other ten hours waiting for a rainstorm so they can add the sound effects at the start of the album. It’s actually pretty cool.
And you know what else is cool? The rest of the first side (I am master of the segway!), as I thoroughly endorse both “The Wizard” and “N.I.B.” “The Wizard” contains some nice, funky extra percussion to go along with that classic, thick Iommi riff, and “N.I.B.” starts Ozzy’s charmingly puerile tradition of singing along note-for-note to whatever classic, think Iommi riff happens to be playing at the time, something which comes to full fruition on Paranoid, just like pretty much everything cool about early period Sabbath except “how low and grumbly can Tony make his guitar tone,” which comes to full fruition on Master of Reality. And, by the way, I know the track listing for the third tune on this record says “Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.,” but the first two things are about thirty seconds long each and “Bassically” is a fifteen-second bass solo, so the song is bassically just “N.I.B.”
The second side is what drags the record down to an 8. I mean, it’s fine, but the Sabbathers started out as a blues band called “Earth” before Tony detuned his guitar and they became BLACK SABBATH, THE MOST INFLUENTIAL METAL BAND OF ALL TIME, and the remnants of those hardcore blues days come through a little too much for me here. I mean, you know what a lot of blues is? Just some guy soloing over a chord progression you’ve heard before for like ten minutes. And you know what most of “Warning” is? Just some guy soloing over a chord progression you’ve heard before for like ten minutes. And, unfortunately, that “some guy” here is Tony Iommi, not Jimmy Page, so I can’t say that large chunks of “Warning” don’t bore the living shit out of me. Part of “Wicked World” does this too, but only for a minute or two. The rest of that song is OK, but no “The Wizard.” I guess you could say that side 2 of this record drags. Though you might want to capitalize the word, italicize it, and add a bunch more a’s, like so:
DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGS.
Just like every one of the first six records by this fine band, though, this record just feels like a classic, even it I only gave it an 8 and half of it is boring blues soloing. “Black Sabbath” remains the scariest song I’ve ever heard, and the rest of the first side remains in a state of RULING MY ASS. Good, solid record.
threegtrz@hotmail.com
writes:
When
I was 10, my 15 year old brother stayed up late one Saturday night to watch the
Joan Crawford schlocker "Strait-Jacket". I awoke at 12:30 Sunday
morning to find him huddling into my twin bed. When I asked just what the Sam
Hill he was doing, he said the movie scared him so much he was afraid to go
back in his room. Okay, I thought, I gotta see this next time it comes on.
Come
the following summer, me at 11, turns on the Creature Feature hotly
anticipating the return of Mommy Dearest wielding an axe. I made it as far as
the prologue and grisly opening credits before I SMACKED off that TV, ran up to
my room without touching a step, and "slept" the remainder of the
summer with a light on. Remember this was a movie made late 50s, early 60s in
good ol' B&W. Not a drop of blood splattered across the screen in that
short ten minutes or so. But William Castle was so good he scared the bejesus
outta ya without any of that Freddy-Michael-Chucky-Pinhead slop that passes for
scary these days. The power of suggestion.
Fast
forward to me at 14. Same older brother has borrowed Black Sabbath's debut. I
heard o'these guys, so I snatch it and lay it on the BSR and pop the headphones
on another late Saturday night while a Severe Thunderstorm raged outside. I got
as far as "Oh no, no, no please God help me!" and SMACK! off goes the
stereo and I spend another several nights with the light on.
When rock wanted to be scary, it worked best on the same level as the "B" feature at the drive-in. Coarse, grainy, but I'll bet the farm there were some shitty movies in your past that had a scene or two you'll NEVER forget. Same with the Sabs. Very coarse, grainy at times, but for a band that debuts with a chord progression some call "Satan's Triad" and vocals that sound like a character from Poe trying to scratch outta their coffin, it works. They never rubbed your face in it like some of the gothly stuff out now. Remember, this was before videos became a viable industry, so there was a lot of music out there with a Theatre of the Mind quality. And right here you got it. Alice Cooper's "Killer" album does the same thing.
Oh,
by the way, I have never listened to the rest of this LP. I think. Although
there may have been a time in '80 or '81 when I was at this guy Varmint's
house. Varmint usually had some awesome MJ, and I may have made it through the
album then. My life from age 17 through 22 is a tad hazy, so I can't say for
sure. Although I'm sure part of my life involved trysting with Cheryl
Tiegs. That I know for sure.
Mark
Paranoid (1971)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Fairies Wear Boots”
HOOOOOOO-BOY! NOW we’re talking! This is probably my favorite metal album of
all time, unless you wanna count Led Zeppelin IV as “metal,” then it’s
probably number 3, because I like Houses of the Holy more, too. But MAN!
YEAH! As Jack Feeny says, “Every
discerning rock fan should own a copy and every metal fan should have own about
eight.” I think “should have own” might
be a British thing, but, other than that, his statement is absolutely right
on the money. Every song here is a
certified, no-doubt-about-it CLASSIC!
Except for the drum solo on side 2.
That shit’s whack. The rest,
though? CLASSIC!!!!
And, to be quite honest, I don’t see how anyone could get through the first two lines of the record’s opener, “War Pigs,” without breaking out a 10 in similar fashion to what I have done. “Generals gathered in their masses!!!!!!!! Just like witches at black masses!!!!!” OH MY GOD! DID YOU HEAR THAT!?? OZZY JUST RHYMED “MASSES” WITH “MASSES!!!” HE RHYMED THE SAME WORD WITH ITSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DUDE!!!!!!
Wait…YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT’S STUPID!!!!!!!!! BUT COOL!!!!!!!!!!! IN AN ABSURDLY CHILDISH WAY!!!!!!!
To me, this album is simply where all of the best qualities of early Sabbath come together. Every single riff on the record is brilliant, from “War Pigs” to “Iron Man” to “Fairies Wear Boots” to whatever. The guitar tone hasn’t gone completely insane like on Master of Reality yet, but it’s still brilliantly thick and full. Ozzy’s singing is higher than the debut, but he still hasn’t gone hardcore helium yet (and he sings along with the riff, note-for-note, on EVERY SINGLE SONG! It may be stupid, but I’ve always found it cool. In a stupid way.). This record is also more unintentionally funny (lyrically and whatnot, not musically like Never Say Die!) than any other Sabbath record. I mean, beyond the line in “War Pigs” which I already mentioned, there’s the hilarious “I…AM…IRON MAN!!!” opening to “Iron Man,” the “ELECTRIC FUNERAL! ELECTRIC FUNERAL!” stuff in “Electric Funeral,” and does anyone else find the line “Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me! I saw it I saw it I tell you noooo liiieeees” as funny as me? It’s HILARIOUS! But in a good way! Hell, even the token “moody, linking song” on this album rules! I dig “Planet Caravan” to no end. There’s bongos, atmospheric guitar work, and little piano chords and the end, and Ozzy’s lyrics sound like they’re been filtered through used bong water. And finally, to top it all off, Bill Ward will never be confused with Keith Moon, John Bonham, Stewart Copeland, or Bill Bruford, but his simple style (and insistence on using the same drum fill every five seconds for the entirety of the album) somehow fits on this record better than any other Sabbath album. Don’t ask me why. I can’t even explain it. It just does. I mean, imagine “War Pigs” without Bill’s drumming. Doesn’t it absolutely make the song, even if it’s technically unimpressive? Whatever, I’m babbling.
I used to think
that the first side of this puppy was far superior to the second, but I was
wrong in that. I think it was just
because side 1 has what might be the three most famous Sabbath songs of all
time on it, “War Pigs,” “Paranoid,” and “Iron Man” (along with “Planet
Caravan”), and, since I’d already heard the whole goddamn side outside of
“Planet Caravan,” it was natural to think it was better originally. Like I said, though, INCORRECT! The slow, wah-wah riff in “Electric Funeral”
and the moody, almost jazz-like bass and drums intro to “Hand of Doom” rule
practically as much as side 1, and I appreciate how they both break off like
halfway through to speed up for a minute, only to return to their slow, sludgy
Sabbath roots. Then the closer, “Fairies
Wear Boots” is simply my favorite song on the album, even though picking one
for this record is just about impossible.
God, what a fucking amazing song.
The only thing cooler is the intro to “
I can’t recommend this record highly enough. Every song (except “Rat Salad”) is absolutely brilliant, and, despite my love for Sabotage, Black Sabbath never really came close to matching this anywhere else in their career. It’s the metal classic to end all metal classics. Simply awesome.
Master Of Reality (1971)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Sweet Leaf”
Now this one I don’t get.
OK, no, that’s not quite right. I understand why this one his so highly revered, but I just can’t agree with it. I haven’t seen this album rated lower than a 9 on any site I’ve perused so far (not to mention the A+ that Capn Marvel gave it), and I’ve tried and tried and tried, but…no, I just can’t agree. I mean, yeah, since I am by no means a metalhead (my allegiance to System of a Down and Tool notwithstanding…but I could give a FUCK that those are metal bands, they’re INTERESTING!), this is probably the heaviest album I’ve heard in my life, and the guitar tone that Tony employs here is absolutely ridiculous…it makes Paranoid seem bright and happy and cheerful. Mark Prindle calls it a “substitute vacuum cleaner.” I think that’s about right. The problem I have is that it seems like Tony came up with this ULTRA-low, ULTRA-grumbly guitar tone, loved it, but then figured he didn’t have to do anything else. The riffs here are good (ofcourse), but I just think they’re a step down from the Paranoid riffs. Plus, the record is like ten minutes shorter than any other Sabbath album, and seven minutes of that is taken up by useless soft filler stuff. For instance, “Solitude” is supposed to do the same thing as “Planet Caravan” did on Paranoid, but it SUCKS, so that’s an issue. Then “Embryo” and “Orchid” are the first two acoustic instrumental linking thingys Tony tries, and, well, they pretty much blow too. “Orchid” is unassuming and over in a minute or so, but “Embryo,” despite being only thirty seconds long, sucks large fat chunks of goat testicles. It’s amateurish. My dog could’ve written it. It’s just a waste of thirty seconds. Every time it plays, I feel like I want those thirty seconds of my life back. But it’s only thirty seconds long, I guess…
OK, let’s move onto the actual songs on the record, which ARE quite good, despite the negativity of this review so far. The problem I have is this: there are only FIVE of them, none of them give off the “epic” feel of “War Pigs” or something from Paranoid, and none of them exceed six minutes. See, I just don’t feel comfortable giving this record any more than an 8 when there’s just so little here. I mean, yeah, sure, all of these songs are GOOD, and “Sweet Leaf” is fucking GREAT (love the looped cough intro!), but…THIS is a no-doubt metal classic? NO! THIS stands next to Paranoid as the pinnacle of Sabbath’s career? NO! Paranoid BEATS THIS THING INTO THE GROUND. REPEATEDLY. WITH FEELING.
But DESPITE all that, this is still a damn good record, and the opener, “Sweet Lead,” as I mentioned, is superb. The riff is so deceptively simple…but you can’t get it out of your head! For days!!!! And it’s about POT! COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The rest of the songs here are no slouch, either…I just wish there were more of them. “After Forever” has a neat (synth?) intro that might be the only display of instrumental diversity on the entire album. I don’t like whatever the fuck that percussion thing in “Children of the Grave” is, but good riff! “Lord of This World” is probably the only competition for “Sweet Leaf” on the album in my book, and it gives off a nice, multi-part feel. And the guitar tone makes it feel like your eardrums are being dragged across a gravel field for five minutes, but that’s what the whole album does. Oh! There’s neat guitar soloing in it, too! Better than the “Sweet Leaf” middle solo section, at least. And “Into the Void” is good too, I guess. Also multi-part. Good stuff.
But, besides the useless and/or crappy filler things I mentioned, that’s the album, and that’s the problem I have with the album. There’s not enough! I WANT MORE!!! Although, if you think about it, another ten minutes of this guitar tone slamming into your brain might not be the best idea. I get a headache from this album more often than not (thank you, Tony’s guitar tone!), and that’s even WITH “Solitude” putting me to sleep for five crappy minutes right near the end of a 30-minute album. What if there were no “Solitude?” And what if the album were ten minutes longer? Would I go deaf by the end of the record? Quite possibly. I still might give it a higher rating, though.
This is still a very good record, and quite worthy of your listening time. Just don’t expect the life-altering experience it’s supposed to give you. Unless you’re a metalhead, I guess...then you’ll probably LOVE it!!!!
And all the lyrics (except for the song about pot) are Christian, by the way. Even more so than Creed! Just thought I’d let Tipper Gore know, y’know.
Vol. 4 (1972)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Supernaut”
Well, this is one messy record. By FAR the messiest of the “classic six” Sabbath records. Because of this messiness, I used to think this was the weakest of the six, too (that honor now goes to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, though chiefly due to one odiously horrendous piece of SHIT song), but now I’m inclined to maybe rate it third out of all of Sabbath’s albums, although all of these 8’s are pretty much even. It’s an interesting record, with a lot more to grab onto than Master of Reality, and the band, for the first time, attempts to expand their boundaries a bit (I think Tony thought he’d taken the original Sabbath sound as far as it could go on Master of Reality), albeit in a messy, sludgy, unfocused manner. Thus, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found, and plenty of enjoyment to be had, but the record has to linger with you for a bit…because it’s all fucking messy and shit.
In terms of “expanding their boundaries,” for starters, the opener “Wheels of Confusion” is easily the most complex song they’d done to this point. Lots of parts a-shifting and a-changing, and near the end it just turns into a completely different song! And the guitar tone’s sort of lightened up a bit! Nice. I dig this song a good bit. “Tomorrow’s Dream” continues on this new sort of “more complex and a bit lighter” Sabbath, and I dig it too! Not multi-part or anything, but good stuff! I really like the first side of this album. Yes, even “Changes,” the limp-schlonged piano ballad that you can’t even believe is PLAYING until you get into the weird, plinky instrumental “FX” and you go “wait…DID BLACK SABBATH JUST DO A PIANO BALLAD????????? WHAT THE FUCK???????” Everyone seems to shit on the song (or at least George does), but I don’t find anything wrong with it. The piano playing is far from impressive, and the lyrics are stupid beyond belief, but it’s nice! It’s just a nice song. Neither awesome (Dude! Black Sabbath doing a piano ballad!) nor bullshit (Blech! Black Sabbath doing a piano ballad?). Just nice (Oh! Black Sabbath doing a piano ballad).
After that goofy “FX” thing, which still confuses me (what the fuck IS that?), comes, to me, the real meat of the album, “Supernaut” and “Snowblind.” “Supernaut” is AWESOME. It’s probably the heaviest song the band’s ever done outside of the entire Master of Reality album, and it seems even MORE heavy since it comes after “Changes” and “FX.” You’re sitting there, still extremely confused because a) Black Sabbath just did a piano ballad, and b) you have no fucking idea what the hell “FX” was, and then you are suddenly BASHED OVER THE HEAD by the guitar riff to “Supernaut.” And there’s like a boogie percussion section in the middle! AND IT RULES MY ASS!!!! Awesome. “Snowblind” is almost as good, too, a great riff, good multi-parter, and super-effective use of strings near the end. Great song. And it’s about COCAINE! COOL!!!!!!!!!!
You might now be asking yourself why there’s an 8 up there, since all I’ve done since this review started is praise this record (as well as call it really, really messy). Well, I’m gonna tell you. Since this record is messy, and the guitar tone Tony uses is sort of messier and sludgier and just less cool than Sabbath’s other records, when the band throws on a few random Sabbath sludgefests at the end, they can’t help but be mediocre. I appreciate the fact that “Laguna Sunrise,” which is GORGEOUS (Oooooo! Mellotron!!!) and probably the best acoustic instrumental the band ever did, is plopped down in the middle of the mediocre side 2 sludge, but the fact remains that “Cornucopia,” “St. Vitus Dance,” and “Under the Sun” are just half-assed songs, and pale in comparison to everything Sabbath had done before. Except all the boring blues soloing on the second half of the debut album, I guess. Now, none of these songs are BAD, per se (especially when compared to the ODIOUSLY HORRENDOUS PIECE OF SHIT SONG on the next album), but they’re just unmemorable. They don’t really do anything for me. And that’s the first time I can say that about a random Sabbath riff sludger. But it won’t be the last.
Damn
interesting record, this one is. Damn
messy, damn unfocused, and damn sludgy, but damn interesting. There’s a piano ballad! And some complex, lightened-up, multi-part
shit! And some strings! And a beautiful acoustic instrumental! With a MELLOTRON in it! All sorts of good stuff, you see. But, still, when you get down to it, the best
moment on the album remains when Sabbath simply tries to KICK YOUR ASS.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath”
Further attempting to expand their sound here, the Sabbathers cart in some keyboards (guess who plays them…RICK WAKEMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE’S EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!), give more thought to the structure of their songs (no more Vol. 4 messiness here, no sirree), and more or less abandon their famous super-grumbly guitar CRRRRRRUNCH in favor of a more standard seventies-rock guitar sound. Metalheads thus tend to view this record as the beginning of the end, but metalheads are morons. This record is just fine! I do think it’s the weakest of the classic six Sabbath records, but, as I believe I mentioned in the last review, that’s mostly due to one ODIOUSLY HORRENDOUS PIECE OF SHIT SONG rather than the whole album being weaker top to bottom (although it is weaker than Paranoid…but EVERY Sabbath album is weaker than Paranoid!). Just one disgustingly awful misstep mars this baby. Otherwise, it’s finger-lickin’ good!
And, for starters, it probably has the best one-two album-opening punch of any Sabbath album outside of Paranoid’s “War Pigs” / “Paranoid” double whammy. First, we’ve got the title track, probably the only song here to achieve “undisputed classic Sabbath” status. The riff is suuuperb, though (again) not as heavy or thick as previous Sabbath releases. I like the guitar tone fine, though. I mean, it’s not the classic Sabbath tone, but who doesn’t like some good ol’ seventies classic rock? I sure do! The songs on this album and the next one are not so much about just “the riff” as they are about the songs’ arrangements and structures. And the title track wins on both of those counts! The acoustic interludes are nice and tasty, and the last two minutes bring us a return of the low, Sabbath sludginess! With BONGOS!!! And Ozzy (by now in full-on helium mode) sounds possessed in his singing. “SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH!!!!” Good stuff, it is. And “A National Acrobat,” coming next, is almost as good. I don’t get the same “multi-part” feeling as I do from the title track, but I appreciate the way the guitar tone on the song’s riff keeps morphing and changing and heavy-fying during its six excellent minutes. And this one has BONGOS too! I like bongos.
Nothing on the record really matches those two standouts, but there’s still plenty of tastiness left. “Fluff” is a pretty instrumental. No “Laguna Sunrise,” but very good in its own right. And does the beginning of it remind anyone else of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts?” Aren’t those like the same notes? Did R.E.M. rip off Black Sabbath??? It’s funny to think about, isn’t it? Anyhoo, “Sabbra Caddabra” comes next, and I endorse the Wakeman touches here. Nice (obviously dated seventies prog yet still cool) synth touches, and it turns into like a piano jig at the end. The fuck is that? Cool, though. “Killing Yourself to Live” sounds more like a traditional Sabbath riff sludger than anything else on the album for its first half, before Ozzy goes “SMOKE IT!” and “GET HIGH!” halfway through, turning it into something that sounds more like it should be on this album, with light synth touches and shit. And then it turns back into a riff sludger, because this is still Black Sabbath, remember. It’s a pretty good song, methinks, but I prefer pretty much everything on the first side. I’m not a huge fan of “Looking For Today,” though, as it strikes me as a half-assed attempt to make a radio-ready pop song, and, goshdarnit, YOU’RE BLACK SABBATH! YOU DON’T DO THAT! I mean, it’s not bad, but it’s decidedly mediocre. Not as good as the closing “Spiral Architect,” in any case, which is probably the only tune on side 2 that can compete with side 1. It starts out with some acoustic guitar for about a minute, before the real song comes in…and it sounds nothing like classic Sabbath! At ALL! It’s just like a generic AOR-type classic rock song! But it doesn’t matter, because it’s good, you see. Then there’s these cheesy string flourishes that come in a bunch of times, which start to bore me, but then they go away, and Ozzy goes “you know that I SHOULD!” It’s so…happy! Weird coming from Black Sabbath, I know, but it works. Then at the end they overdub these crowd cheering noises. Figure I should mention that, in case you download it and go, “wait, did I download a live version?” That’s what I thought the first time!!
And that just leaves “Who Are You.” Now, I normally enjoy synth-heavy tunes called “Who Are You” by justifiably famous classic rock bands. Ofcourse, I’m usually listening to the one by The Who, NOT this one, because it is, as I have said a few times, an ODIOUSLY HORRENDOUS PIECE OF SHIT. Just drums, bass, and synths. No guitar! And AWFUL synths. They’re trying to sound “scary” or something. I don’t know. Maybe they were going for an E.L.P.-type thing. That would make sense, I guess, because E.L.P. is terrible. I really can’t describe its awfulness to you in words. Just try to imagine a Black Sabbath song where, basically, 90% of the instruments involved are 2nd-rate E.L.P.-sounding hideously dated synthesizers, playing a part that’s just way too simple and rudimentary for the instruments playing it, on top of which Ozzy is trying his darnedest to sound as spooky and creepy as possible, but all of his attempts end up being undermined by the hideous music that’s playing in the background. This song is rancid. I’d say the only song worse than this I’ve heard on an album I’d highly recommend (i.e. rating of 8 or higher) would be “Mother” by The Police. Just a terrible, terrible song.
The rest of the album is plenty good, though. If you dig Sabbath solely for Tony’s masterful riffs and GRRRRRRUMBLY guitar tone, you might not dig this one as much, since it sounds all generic classic rock-y than classic Sabbath-y. I still say eat it up, though. But skip “Who Are You.” That song isn’t very good.
Dominick
On the subject of whether
Fluff rips off R.E.M. or
not: I haven't heard the R.E.M. song of which you
speak, but the opening acoustic riff of Fluff is just
a D major chord played one note at a time, first in
ascending order and then in descending order. Hence,
it isn't really a 'riff' as such. The most likely
explanation is that R.E.M. came up with it,
coincidentally, by themselves, since playing a single
chord one note at a time is a pretty simple guitar
part (though it does sound pretty). Anyway, Sabbath
kicks ass.
Sabotage (1975)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Symptom Of The
Universe”
The guitar tone hasn’t changed (same sort of generic classic rock-y stuff…but still thick! And, mmmmmm, oh so SATISFYING!) from the last album, but this record sounds more like “classic Sabbath.” Why? Well, the menace is back. The last album sounded all happy and shit in spots (for Sabbath, at least). This one? NOPE! It’s dark and evil and menacing. And I luuuuuuuuv it! My 2nd favorite Sabbath album…not that you couldn’t figure that out by looking at all the ratings. Unless you’re a retard, I guess.
In any case, this is also the most “progressive” of Sabbath’s albums. Now, all you metalheads, don’t get yourself all in a tither! It’s not “progressive rock” in the Yes or (heaven forbid) E.L.P. sense. They actually mostly get rid of the keyboards that were all a-cluttering up the last album. Sure, “Megalomania” has some piano, “Thrill of it All” has a little synth touch, and “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” has a bunch of keyboards splattered on it (and, thus, in a “Looking For Today”-esque attempt to be the radio-ready single, is rather mediocre and the worst song on the album), but what Sabbath attempt here is a sort of “prog-metal” vibe which, unless you count all that mid-‘70’s King Crimson stuff (but even then, too, because there’s no fusion crap going on here), hadn’t really existed before. Each side ends with an long, epic track (not Yes-epic, I mean like 8 or 9 minutes), and a bunch of tunes have a neat, multi-part feel that goes beyond previous Sabbath attempts to be multi-part, in that they have more than, like, two parts, and that the “different parts” don’t simply mean “different riffs played with the same speed and guitar tone.”
But you’ve gotta wait for track three for that, because “Hole in the Sky” is the sludgiest Sabbath riff sludger since Vol. 4. And you know how it sounds? Evil, and menacing, and, just, cool. I dig the songs on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath plenty for the most part, but that classic Sabbath “vibe” is missing, gone in the same of artistic progression, heightened commercial appeal, and a bunch of keyboards. For this record, they’ve kept the artistic progression, but (for the most part) ditched the heightened commercial appeal and keyboards. “Hole in the Sky” (not to mention the rest of this album) is more evil-sounding than anything the band’s done since, well, Master of Reality, really (even if that entire album is about Jesus, it doesn’t SOUND like its about Jesus). Vol. 4 was low and sludgy and all, but more messy than evil. This record is evil.
And, after “Hole in the Sky” and the little acoustic intro “Don’t Start (Too Late),” holy mother of CHEDDAR CHEESE do we have a couple of songs. First, not often can an entire musical genre trace itself back to one song, but it can safely be said that “Symptom of the Universe” is the seed from which all thrash and speed metal sprang. And, frankly, it’s better than like 99.9% of it. FUCK, what a song. Four and a half minutes of riff after riff after punishing riff that never stop KICKING YOUR ASS, before, in a sudden and unexpected display of good taste, the band employs a nice two-minute acoustic outro that rules almost as much as the song itself. Sweeeeeeet…but then comes “Megalomania!!” Dude! Without a doubt the most artistically impressive composition the Sabs ever wrote, it practically defines the word “menacing,” starting with the neat “fade-in” vocal effect (“obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed!”), and continuing thusly for all of its jaw-dropping near-ten minute running length. A-la “A National Acrobat,” the principle riff keeps getting added to by Tony, until it has this other-worldly feel by the end of the tune. And, ofcourse, the “SUCK MEEE!!” and “STICK MEEE!!!” things that Ozzy does. Absolutely brilliant. The fact that I actually like “Symptom of the Universe” more just shows how much that song never stops KICKING YOUR ASS.
Now, those two tunes combined are probably the best fifteen-minute stretch of music in the Sabbath catalog (yes, better than any continuous fifteen-minute piece of Paranoid), so, ofcourse, the rest of the record pales in comparison. Still good, though! I don’t even mind “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” all that much. The reason that people shit on that song while leaving “Looking For Today” alone baffles me. They’re equally mediocre! I guess people are too busy trashing “Who Are You” to notice “Looking For Today,” and “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” has no equally awful counterpart to take the heat off. In any case, the side 2 opener “Thrill of it All” is a nice enough song, but probably the other weak link of the record to me. It has the same sort of useless synth fade-in things that weren’t that interesting in “Killing Yourself to Live” from the last record. However, I’m not ashamed to say I LOVE “Supertzar,” the goofy little “church choir over Tony’s riffing” instrumental thing. I just think it fits perfectly with the whole “epic and menacing” feel of the album. It’s superb. So sue me. Then the second closing epic, “The Writ,” is no “Megalomania,” or even close, really, but its still DARK and EVIL and MENACING. Even that closing harpsichord-sounding thing! That’s dark, too! Really! Ozzy whispers “Rrrrrrats!” all menacing-like! It’s really cool!
I really love this album. I mean, it’s not a masterpiece or anything, but it’s easily #2 in the Sabbath catalog, at least to me. It sounds evil! And isn’t that what Sabbath is really about? Great forking stuff. And, again, amidst all this artistic growth and complex epics and poop, the best moment on the album remains when Sabbath simply tries to KICK YOUR ASS.
Technical Ecstasy (1976)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Back Street Kids”
And thus ends the classic Sabbath period, but there’s really not that big of a drop-off, because this album’s not that bad! I mean, it’s not that great, either, and it’s nothing close to a “classic” or anything, but there’s still plenty of solid rock and roll enjoyment to be found on this forty-minute selection of mp3’s currently sitting in my Winamp player. From here on out, though, it’s for hardcore fans only. If you’re not either a) a HUGE Sabbath fan (I’m not, by the way…I dig Sabbath, sure, but not HARDCORE style) or b) a web reviewer (Hi there! That’s me!), just stick to the first six. They’re all classics, even if I only gave two of them a rating over 8.
OK, back to the album at hand, and guess what! The keyboards are back! HUZZAH!!!!! And that remark isn’t as sarcastic as it seems, because, for my money, this record integrates all the fun keyboard sounds of the mid-‘70’s better than any other Sabbath record (let us not forget that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath has fucking “Who Are You” on it), starting with the kick-butt opener “Back Street Kids.” Now, it’s not a kick-ass opener, mind you, just a kick-butt opener, as from this point on Sabbath will never kick ass again. Butt, sure. Ass? No. No ass will be kicked. I’m satisfied with butt, though. And I’m satisfied with this song! Even if the keyboards sound suspiciously like Tormato-synths, that ascending trill thing they play is still neat, and Ozzy’s melody line in the chorus (“nooooooooobody I knoooooooow will ever taaaaaaaaaake my rock and roll away from me!”) refuses to not get stuck in your head for weeks on end. Again, not even close to being on par with any of the classic tunes from the band’s previous records, but still a good, solid song. No doubt about it!
I dig most of the rest of the first half of this record, as well. It’s just good, solid stuff. If you just remember that the days of classic Sabbath are over and NEVER COMING BACK, you’ll have plenty of fun here. “You Won’t Change Me” and the Bill Ward-sung (???) “It’s Alright” continue this record’s reliance on keyboards and hooks instead of classic Iommi guitar riffs, and they both get a thumbs-up from me! I’m not even sure if “It’s Alright” has ANY guitar in it, but the keyboard involved is actually a real piano (oooo, tasteful!), and it’s a nice song. Like “Changes” from Vol. 4 is a nice song. And Bill’s calm, low voice actually fits this type of piano ballad/pop song better than Ozzy’s high-pitched helium wail. Some people like to go and compare this song to the Beatles (either praising it as “Beatles-esque” or trashing it as a “Beatles rip-off”), but I don’t know when it became that writing a nice pop song automatically meant you were imitating and/or ripping off the Beatles. I sense absolutely NOTHING in the song to connect Black Sabbath to the Fab Four. Still, a nice song nonetheless.
The reliance on keyboards and hooks disappear around this point, as the album returns to basic guitar rock, but it’s more a generic seventies boogie-rock than anything else (much less Sabbath-sounding than even the last two albums). Thus, except for the neat-o multiple guitar solo freakout section at the end of “Dirty Women,” none of it is all that special. “Gypsy” has a nice multi-part feel between bouncy cowbell-driven disco rocker and pseudo-moody ballad, and it’s probably the best song here than I haven’t mentioned yet, but it’s not all that special. “All Moving Parts (Stand Still)” and “Rock and Roll Doctor” are just sort of “there.” If Ozzy weren’t singing them, you probably couldn’t tell they’re by Black Sabbath. “Rock and Roll Doctor” has some cool sort of jumpy cabaret piano in there, I guess. Whatever. Inoffensive, but bland.
Apparently, there’s another song on here, too. It even says so in my Winamp player right next to the number 7. “Black Sabbath – She’s Gone.” From reading other reviews of this record, the song appears to be a string-laden ballad. I’m skeptical, though. I’ve listened to this album something like seven or eight times and it’s yet to be conclusively proven to me that “She’s Gone” actually exists. Just wanted to share that with you all.
This album’s perfectly fine. Pretty good. If you’re expecting classic Sabbath, you’re barking up the WROOOOOOONG tree, my friend, but it’s still alright. The first side’s pretty darn good, actually, but then, as with all Sabbath records to this point except Paranoid (because ALL OF IT RULES ASS!!) and Master of Reality (because all of it’s pretty much indistinguishable from itself), side 2 lets you down. And, yes, that makes two-thirds. Not even close to “all,” in fact. Eh. Bite me. And buh-bye, classic Sabbath! Buh-bye! Don’t trip on your way out!
Never Say Die! (1978)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Never Say Die”
Now, I like both of these “other,” i.e. non-classic, Ozzy Sabbath records I’m reviewing here, but this is the one I feel I have to defend my enjoyment of, since it’s pretty much universally shat upon (not that Technical Ecstasy isn’t…just not as much). And here’s the thing: from a purely boring, scientific way of looking at it, I sort of agree. The songs are a mess, the guitar “tone” sounds like bullshit, and the amount of truly memorable riffs is either zero or zilch, I haven’t figured it out yet. But I like it anyway. Why? Well, I like it precisely because it’s so objectively bad. It’s fun! It’s so WRONG! Call it the “Tormato corollary.” See, on Yes’ Tormato album, every single keyboard sound makes me want to puke from its overwhelming cheeziness, Chris Squire’s bass has an awful “bow-wow-wow” funk effect that ruins every song that isn’t already ruined by the keyboards, and Jon Anderson contributes, bar none, the fruitiest, dippiest set of lyrics ever written by mortal man. I won’t even mention that, on top of all that other stuff, the album cover has an exploding tomato on it. Yet I like it anyway, because it’s SO stupid and SO dumb and SO wrong that it becomes charming. If you wanna compare it to movies, you can call it the “Dude, Where’s My Car? corollary.” When something, on the circle of goodness and badness, becomes so objectively bad that it actually comes back around to the top of the circle, thus becoming good again. That’s why I like that movie (I mean, Stiffler and Kelso! How can you go wrong?), and that’s why I like this album. Sabbath does so many things here that they just SHOULD NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE DOING that the album becomes hilarious, fun, charming, and cool! And I like it.
For starters, look at the opening title track, and let’s count how many things shouldn’t be happening. First of all, the song sounds, to me, like a punk song. That’s one thing that shouldn’t be happening right there. Black Sabbath should NOT be doing punk rock. Now, let’s continue. Ah! Here we go. The lyrics are sickeningly happy. They’re even CUTE! “Don’t you ever…don’t ever say die!!!!!!” This is wrong for several reasons. First, Black Sabbath should NOT be doing “cute, happy, uplifting songs.” Second, punk rock does NOT usually consist of “cute, happy uplifting songs.” HOWEVER, despite all this crap, it’s my favorite song on the album, and, actually, my favorite song on any of these four non-classic Sabbath albums I’ve chosen to review. It’s fucking catchy as all get-out, and, goshdarnit, IT’S JUST SO CUTE! See? THAT, my friends, in a nutshell, is the Tormato corollary.
Moving on,
the second track, “Johnny Blade,” starts off with this weird
“bullets-firing”-sounding synth effect before it tries to cram more sections
than were in Sabbath’s entire first three albums combined into one song. The vocal melody in one of them is just strange. “Jooooooooooohnyyyyyyyy Blaaaaaaaaade! Jooooooooohnyyyyyyyyyyy
Blaaaaaaaaaaade!” It’s almost robotic or
something. Weird. But, by the Tormato corollary,
cool! “Junior’s Eyes” is actually the
only objectively un-sucky song on the album, so we’ll skip it (it doesn’t
excite me very much…not bad enough!!) and move onto “Hard Road” and “Shock
Wave,” two “rockers” that might as well not exist, with their fuzzy, pukey
guitar tones and useless riffs. But “
The last
four songs are where the Tormato corollary really shines through. “Air Dance,” depending on your viewpoint,
could either be Sabbath suddenly being tasteful (Oh! There’s acoustic guitar and jazzy piano and
stuff!) or Sabbath trying to do goofy lounge jazz for no reason, then ending
the song with a synth solo that sounds suspiciously like it actually comes
from Tormato. I prefer the second
interpretation, and the song usually makes me crack up. Cool!
“Over To You” is a strange synth/keyboard rocker that employs the same
tinkly piano trills that were in “Air Dance” for more or less no reason at all
except that it sounds really, really out of place. “Breakout” then blows up the Tormato
corollary scale altogether, as it’s a HORN INSTRUMENTAL. Yes, Black Fucking Sabbath saw fit to
put a HORN INSTRUMENTAL on one of their records. Tony’s on the background doing some sort of
riffing that’s barely audible, and, on top of it, there’s, like, AN ENTIRE HORN
SECTION!!! And there’s a shitty sax solo
on top of the rest of the horn section!!!!
WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????? I choose not to ask questions,
and just let the Tormato corollary do its work, like on the closing
Bill Ward-sung (again) “Swinging the Chain,” where our good friend Bill
abandons any pretense he might have had of ripping off the Beatles again in
favor of a harmonica solo and all sorts of high-pitched “YEAHHHH!!” and
“AHHHHH!!!!” singing, most of which gives me a headache, because Bill has a
vocal range smaller than Ian Anderson and sounds like a ferret in the process
of being anally probed when he forces his voice to hit those high notes.
Still, I dig this record enough and
get enough enjoyment out of it to happily grant it a 7. It’s just so weird and odd to hear Black Sabbath try some of the crap that they try here. I mean…a horn instrumental? What the FUCK were they thinking? Really, what?
I find it hilarious, though, and plop out a good rating because of the
cool, the charming, and the funny. Long
live the Tormato corollary!
Heaven And Hell (1980)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Children Of The Sea”
I was all ready to give this album and the
one after it nice, sparkling 7’s, but then, as I listened to the albums again
yesterday, I realized that, even after like seven or eight listens or whatever,
I could only really recall how four, maybe five songs on both of these albums combined actually go just from looking at the track listing. And, on top of that, all the songs I
remembered were invariably in the first few tracks of whichever album they were
on. I mean, both of these records are
pretty damn cool when they’re playing, but their emptiness is absolutely
astounding. They might be the most
FRIGHTENINGLY generic pair of albums I’ve ever heard outside of Creed’s first
two records. Just like the same damn
song over and over and over again for forty minutes (though it feels more like
sixty). There’s not ONE song on either
of these two albums I can pick out to specifically recommend. Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Oh, yeah, there’s a reason for this,
ofcourse. Ozzy’s gone! AWWWW!
And four-foot, two-inch (or whatever) wizard ‘n’ maiden-obsessed Ronnie
James Dio is brought into replace him.
And, no, this isn’t a David Lee Roth/Sammy Hagar thing. I could really care less about the
Ozzy/Ronnie debate, and I actually like Ronnie’s voice better! HA!
Like the ultimate generic dungeons and dragons cheese metal yelper. Lots of vibrato and whatnot. Lyrics like “then we did THE DEMON DANCE!!!!”
and “lady eeeeeevil…EVIL!!! She’s a
magical, mystical womaaaan!!!” sung like they actually fucking mean
something. Cool guy, I reckon. No, see, the problem I have is the rest of
the record. Even though Ozzy had
absolutely NOTHING to do musically with the last two Sabbath albums (I saw on
some VH1 thing that the first time he actually heard them in full is when they
were released to the public!), for some reason the mere presence of Ozzy drove Tony to keep trying all sorts of goofy, artsy
bullpoop. A lot of it turned out badly,
sure, but at least those records are (here’s that word again!) interesting. With the advent of Ronnie
James, Tony retreated not just all the way back from his pseudo-artsy
tendencies to regular old-school Sabbath, but even farther, into
completely useless D and D cheese metal genericism, making Master of Reality look like Relayer or something by comparison. After several albums of trying to be “artsy”
and gain critical acceptance (which he, ofcourse, never got, and STILL doesn’t
have…I mean, BLACK SABBATH AREN’T EVEN IN THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME! AND FUCKING DUSTY
The album is
still pretty good, though, despite its incredible genericism. Ronnie has one motherfucking COOL voice,
which brings the rating up a point by itself, and everything is well-written,
well-produced, and well-played. It just
takes absolutely NO chances. NONE. AT ALL.
The only things that really stick out in my head are the facts that
“Neon Knights” is really fast and cool (even if I can’t remember anything
beyond that), the “then we did THE DEMON DANCE!!!” line in “Children of the
Sea” is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life (by itself
making me give the tune my coveted “best song” nod), the bass intro to “Lady
Evil” sounds like disco (but sorta cool
disco, I guess), and the last
minute of “Lonely is the Word” is a DIRECT LIFTING from the guitar solo part of
“Stairway to Heaven.” Same four chords
and everything. I guess they picked a
pretty good song to rip off, but it still sickens me. YOU CANNOT DIRECTLY RIP OFF “STAIRWAY TO
HEAVEN.” NO! BAD, TONY!
BAD, RONNIE! BAD, BAD, BAD!!!!!
That’s about it, I guess. “Cool and well-written, but mind-numbingly
boring and generic.” Solid 6. I really can’t tell any of these songs
apart. All the riffs sound the same, and
exactly ZERO of them are truly memorable.
The songs don’t differ at all beyond “this one’s a little faster” or
“this one has a generic moody synth backing.”
It’s gone down in history as a classic, though. For some reason. Those metalheads! They love their generic metal! “YEAAHHHHH!!!!!! GENERIC METAL!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! WOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
FUCK that shit. Leave me out, please.
Ronnie still has a really cool
voice, though.
David Dickson
(ddickso2@uccs.edu) writes:
Say. Speaking of heaven
and hell, I discovered something
abso-bloody-lutely horrible. See, despite all the conservative
"douche wanker" leanings I may have displayed and/or seemed to
display
over the last day, I'm actually fairly left-wing on most issues sans
international. I just grew up among conservative people galore, and
maybe I defend them too often for my own damned good. Anyway, here I
was, moving to Colorado Springs and thinking I'd just become an
aerospace engineer by my quiet little self, enjoy the mountain ranges,
and settle into the "suburban student" sciz-ene (yo) in peace and
quiet. . .
. . . and then I find out FOCUS ON THE FAMILY HAS THEIR NATIONAL
HEADQUARTERS JUST EIGHT BLOCKS A-FUCKIN' WAY!! Next to my BANK, no
less!! What the HELL, man!? Fuckity. It seems even the most
idyllic
locations have their "personal Satan" (cover of Depeche Mode's
"Personal Jesus" by Marilyn Manson, copyright 2010, All Rights
Reserved).
Anyway, this album has a terrible production job, and the last two
songs are crap, but the first six songs are all excellent. Ya, today
we call it "generic," but at the time, this style of metal was still
fairly new--Iron Maiden practically didn't exist yet. Personally, I'm
impressed that the Sabbath managed to keep up with the NWOBHM
(pronounced "Wooster") craze of the late '70's and NOT manage to
sound
like talentless idiots. Say. I just realized something. What
OTHER
loud distorted guitar style was "tha rage" back in the late '70s???
No WONDER the two genres hate each other's guts.
I rank the title track as the best song. 8 rating for the album
overall. Judging by your review of this LP, though, I would guess
that you would probably not like Queensryche--sure, they have far more
sincere material than this band, and their lyrics are shockingly good
for a hair metal band, but they're still a damn hair metal band. From
Kurt Cobain's hometown, no less. Ouch. I still think Operation
Mindcrime's a classic, though. Blows away Dream Theater's entire
catalog and then some.
Not a classic, this album, but at least better than Master of Reality.
Ew.
Mob Rules (1981)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “The Mob Rules”
Well, this one certainly RAWWWWKS a little
bit better than the other Dio album.
Vinnie Appice replaces Bill Ward behind the skins and proves he knows
how to BASH better than Bill does, and whoever produced this one gave it a harder,
punchier final mix than All Dogs
Go to Heaven and Hell 2, so I can
safely say I like this one better, though not enough to actually give it a
different rating then Dio Sabbath #1, because, outside of
the slightly more RAWWWWKIN’ mix, it’s essentially the same goddamn album. Well-written, well-played, well-produced,
taking no chances, trying nothing interesting, boring, generic cheese metal. With a really cool singer!
You quickly realize just from
looking at the track listing that you’re gonna get the same fucking album as
last time, too. The opener is called
“Turn Up the Night.” The opener on Heaven is Better Than Hell is called “Neon Knights.” Then you put the record on and realize than
“Turn Up the Night” is really fast, energetic, and cool, and one of the two or
three high points (if there ARE any high points, that is…) of the record, just
like “Neon Knights” is really fast and energetic and blah blah blah blah blah blah. Then, in the next few songs,
“Voodoo” = “Lady Evil” and “The Sign of the Southern Cross” = “Children of the
Sea,” though I guess I can give the Dio Sabbathers credit for switching up the
order (the slow-ish, moody-ish song on side 1 comes THIRD, not SECOND!!! WOW!!!).
Then, the fast title track gets plopped down at the end of the first
side again. Zippety-doo-dah. Yippee.
Blow me. Oh! They put a useless synth instrumental
(“E5150”) before the title track this time!
Good for them! WHO CARES!!!! The second side might match up in similar
fashion, too, but I’m usually bored of this record by the time I get halfway
through. JUST LIKE THE OTHER DIO
ALBUM!!!!!
Truthfully, the title track on this
record is the best song the Dio band ever did (“If you listen to fools…THE MOB
RUUUUULES!!!!!!!!”), but then that’s counteracted by the fact that “The Sign of
the Southern Cross” is slow, boring, overlong, and doesn’t have Ronnie James
yelling out “then we did THE DEMON DANCE!!!!” halfway through. That STILL might be the funniest thing I’ve
ever heard. It’s TOO FUCKING
HILARIOUS. You really have to hear it for yourself.
That, the first track on both of these records, and the title track on
this one are probably the only reasons for the Dio incarnation of the band to
exist. The last track on this record is
called “Over and Over.” How apt. When you listen to either of these records,
it feels like you keep hearing the SAME riff and the SAME idiotic lyrics (BUT
SUNG BY A FUCKING COOL VOICE!!) and the SAME song over and over and over and over and over again.
I think that these last four Sabbath
records might present the ultimate example of whether you prefer messy,
somewhat poorly-written music that’s interesting and takes all sorts of chances
or tight, well-written music that takes ZERO chances and all sounds like the
same fucking generic song. Or whether
you’re a metalhead. Either way, I prefer
the last two Ozzy records to these Dio records, even if these are
better-written. I guess that means I
prefer interesting, entertaining music that blows to boring music that’s
good. Eh. And it also means I’m not a metalhead. Not that you didn’t know that already.
Finally, let me say that, just like the last record, this album is NOT
bad. A lot of it’s pretty cool! Hence the technically positive ratings for
both. The band could play the same piece of shit crap song over and over again instead of
the same pretty good but generic song over and over again. Just be thankful for that. Then go get Paranoid.
Now it’s time for Dio to pass the torch. He has songs of wildebeests and angels. He has soared on the wings of a demon (and
done THE DEMON DANCE!!!). It’s time to
pass the torch:
Epilogue:
And pass the torch he did, but not to Jack and KG. No, first, he passed the Black Sabbath torch
to former Deep Purple voicebox Ian Gillan for the release of Born Again, which is the only other Sabbath studio album I MIGHT consider
reviewing, though it’s supposed to blow massive goat cocks, so don’t hold your
breath. I even accidentally downloaded
one song from it when I was getting the Dio albums, and the song was terrible. There are several reasons I
might consider reviewing it, though.
First, in their supporting tour, the band built a massive
That’s also the only other studio
album I’d consider reviewing because it’s the last one released by a group of
people bearing any sort of resemblance to the original
band. See, after Born Again, everyone except Tony Iommi left, so Tony just soldiered on for about
fifteen years for years, recruiting a bunch of nameless scabs to be his sidemen
and releasing worthless albums under the name “Black Sabbath” that are all more
or less supposed to be absolutely horrendous.
Supposedly The Eternal Idol isn’t that big a pile of manure,
and Dio actually returned for one album for some reason, but the rest is
supposed to be atrocious shit. I heard a
story that, by the mid-nineties, Tony actually had a Rolodex with all the
ex-Sabbath members in it, so that when he got the hankering he could just call
up three or four of them and make a shitty album in a week or two. Bullcrap, I say. Anyway, the original foursome reunited in
1998 for a double-live album called
EDIT!!!!
I have purchased Past Lives and it’s good. Review below!
Past Lives (2002)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Hole In The Sky”
It’s kind of silly that there wasn’t a live Sabbath document from the Ozzy era that was any good on the market until 2002, but oh well. There you go. There had been something called Live at Last, recorded in Manchester in 1973 (I think) and released in 1980 (but only in England, and I’m fairly certain it was well out-of-print there too by 2002), but supposedly the sound quality is about the level of third-rate bootleg, so, you know, fuck it. Thankfully, this one gives us a much better picture of what Sabbath sounded like back in the 70’s when they were Sabbath, although the sound quality still isn’t what you’d hope for or expect from such a nicely-packaged live album (more of top-level bootleg…but a bootleg nonetheless), but it sounds good enough at least. I also listened to it enough times in my car during finals period when I wasn’t reviewing anything but planning to review this sometime, eventually that I’ve completely forgotten what half these songs sound like in the studio version by this point, but that’s really neither here nor there.
The first disc of this bad boy is Live at Last, but (I assume) fleshed out with a few extra tracks and cleaned up to sound like something resembling a real live album. There’s a slight inclination towards songs from Vol. 4 (as you might expect), but song selection is overall not bad. I don’t really like the version of “Killing Yourself to Live” here, but “Snowblind” is fairly awesome, and “Sweet Leaf,” “Paranoid,” and “War Pigs” are perfunctory but still entertaining. The one thing I take from this disc (and this album as a whole, really) is that the band really weren’t that scary. Nope (and it’s not like this is a big insight here, I know), they were just potheads. Two of the first three songs on the disc are about smoking pot, for fuck’s sake, and at some point in there (I forget when), Ozzy’s semi-retarded stage banter consists of “ARE YOU HIGH!!!!????? ARE YOU HIGH?????!!!!! SO AM I!!!!!!!!!” It’s hilarious, it really is. I guess I can see how these guys could have been “scary” back in the day, but that’s really more on the studio albums…and even so, come on, “Iron Man” is supposed to be scary? It’s ridiculous! It’s awesome, sure, but it’s ridiculous! “I…AM…IRON MAN!!!” Come on. That’s the kind of thing you come up with after a batch of pot brownies while you’re running to the corner store to buy a giant bag of cheetos.
Anyway, this discussion of “Iron Man” and its inherent stupidity provides a nice segway into disc 2 because, you know, it’s on there (and Ozzy doesn’t do the “I…AM…IRON MAN!” thing at all…considering the state of his voice in some of these songs, probably a good idea). As far as I can tell, disc 2 is drawn from a bunch of random places, so you have anomalies like the aforementioned “Iron Man” sandwiched between half of their debut album and the entire first side of Sabotage (not a song order I’m sure many of their concerts had). The Sabotage songs are, to me, the most interesting part of the whole package because a) I didn’t figure there’d be any of that stuff on there, b) they hadn’t actually put Sabotage out yet, so the audience hadn’t heard the material before (always a fun state of affairs on a live album), and c) all three rock monstrously hard, in spite of Ozzy’s voice’s sounding absolutely terrible (towards the end of Megalomania he gives up trying to hit the high notes and just drops an octave halfway through a verse…nice). They seem like they’re twice as loud as anything else on the 2-disc set, and whenever they were recorded, it’s pretty clear Tony’s guitar riffing had progressed to a near-godlike level by this point (you’ll swear there’s 3 guitarists on stage). Plus, they just fucking tear into the songs. “Megalomania,” even with Ozzy’s vocal troubles, sounds amazing, “Symptom of the Universe” is even faster than the studio version (though consequently much sloppier), and the massive kick in the face that is “Hole in the Sky” pretty much kills the studio version (even though, again, Ozzy sounds like he’s about to die). Elsewhere, the intro to “Black Sabbath” is also as hilariously over-evil as ever, as well as the “Dear god, please help me!!!!” stuff. Come on. You know that’s funny.
Anyway, big
Sabbath fans must pick this up.
Non-Sabbath fans would think it sounds like two hours of loud
noise. It neither blows nor is good
enough to recommend to non-fans. But,
since I’m a fan, I think it’s pretty damn good.
Useful review this was.