Of course, the opening title track has almost nothing to do with the blues, but instead seems to come from the very depths of hell itself. It almost seems ridiculously over-the-top to me in a lot of ways, from the opening distant chimes (with the sounds of rain and thunder, no less) to the three-note tri-tone riff that must have horrified every protestant minister in the UK and the USA, but it's over-the-top in a way that I like. Ozzy's voice is much much deeper than it would be starting with the very next album, but it only adds to the gloom and despair and all that rot. He sounds rather emotionless to me, to tell the truth, but I think that actually helps things here somewhat; it gives an eerie feeling of detachment in the "narrator" portions of the lyrics, and gives a lobotomized horror movie feel to the "OH NO NO PLEASE GOD HELP ME" parts. Add in what I consider very tasteful and moody drumming in the 'main' parts, and an absolutely killer fast part that climaxes in an ending jam, and you have what just may be my very favorite Black Sabbath song.

The rest of the album doesn't really reach "classic" status, but most of it is at least good, and some parts come close to great. A relative highlight comes at the end of side one in the form of "N.I.B.," which everybody assumed stood for Nativity in Black but (according to rumor) is supposedly just a reference to Bill Ward's "nibbish" (pointy) beard. The lyrics are rather stupid in their "deeeeuuhhrr I'm Lucifer" vibe, but the riff is really great, and the way Ozzy mindlessly sings a vocal melody that matches the riff (a regular Sabbath trait) gives it a decent intensity. The only significant problem I have with it, truth be told, is that it's not heavy enough: combined with the guitar tone they'd have in the next couple of years, it would absolutely rule, but here it sounds a little more empty than I'd like. Plus, where Ozzy's flat delivery was to the benefit of the title track, it kinda hurts things here (for a comparison, check out Dio's vocals on the Live Evil version of the track).

As for the rest of the album, a lot of it contains, in addition to the already mentioned blues elements, a pinch of pop and jazz elements. Quite a bit of it sounds somewhat like, as is mentioned by tons of reviews of the album, the very earliest incarnation of Jethro Tull, which isn't completely surprising given that Iommi was their guitarist for a very brief time in 1969. For some reason, "N.I.B." is put on the same CD track as "Behind the Wall of Sleep," a silly little "moody" bluesy guitar-vocal call-and-response that is nonetheless quite a bit of fun to listen to (it's reasonably heavy in parts). Furthermore, the 36-second jazzy introduction to this song, entitled "Wasp," is on the same track, but listed as a separate song. Not only that, but a 20 second bass solo called "Bassically" (har har har) connects "Wall of Sleep" and "N.I.B." ... whatever. Anyway, the blues-poppy elements are most prominent in "The Wizard," which has amazingly bad lyrics but is a fun singalong regardless, and in "Wicked World," which plays off of "Wild Child" (by the Doors) in the verses and has a part where Iommi successfully goes for atmosphere by playing a bunch of notes really really fast. Not amazing, but enjoyable.

The first 25 minutes of the album, truth be told, are basically terrific, and I'd probably give the album the title of "best Sabbath album" if the rest of the album lived up to it. Unfortunately, the end of the album consists of the 14-minute "A Bit of Finger"/"Sleeping Village"/"Warning," which is not exactly the easiest thing to sit through. The moody introduction, with Ozzy singing over a sombre acoustic pattern, is nice, but then the band sets out to pioneer an aspect of heavy metal that hadn't yet been dealt with; the endless in-studio guitar jam. I like parts of it, even if Iommi isn't exactly an awesome soloist, but holy cow it gets tedious after about 7 minutes or so, and it just keeps going and going. I can see where some might love it, but while I can sometimes enjoy things like this in a live setting, I'm not really up for this kind of jamming in the studio (even if it is often two different solos, one coming out of each speaker, which is kinda neat).

That weakness aside, the album is pretty terrific. If I was a bigger fan of Iommi's guitar solos and of this kind of music in general, I'd probably worship this album. As is, I still like it, and think all fans of rock music in general should like it too. Unless you're 100% Puritan, pick it up.

Ironically (or "naturally," given that this happens with me a lot) it's the two songs that deviate from the standard pattern that I enjoy the most on this album. One of them is the title track, a magnificent speedy rocker that would sound more like Deep Purple than Sabbath if it didn't sound so dark at the same time. It's certainly also one of Ozzy's finest moments as a vocalist; he supposedly didn't even know what the word "paranoid" meant before the band wrote the song, but his singing matches this state of mind perfectly. Add in a really neat fuzzy tone to the mid-song guitar solo, and you have one of the very best examples of proto-thrash.

My second favorite, then, is the oft-forgotten and overlooked "Planet Caravan." This one isn't even close to rock, much less hard rock, which I guess is the most obvious reason fans aren't usually huge on it, but I for one seriously dig the vibe of the song. I think of it as Sabbath getting back to their "pothead roots," so to speak, as Ozzy sings through a 'watery' voice filter over a moody, spacey background until Tony breaks into a very soft, jazzy solo. Believe it or not, this was, for the longest time, my favorite Black Sabbath song (which I guess proves once and for all that I'm totally missing the point of Black Sabbath, but hey, I've admitted that already), and I still have a very soft spot in my heart for it.

The rest of the album is five conventional Sabbath stompers (fine) and a drum solo (ehn). To the credit of "Rat Salad," the whole piece is only about two-and-a-half minutes, with the actual solo lasting much less than a minute, which makes it far better to my ears than "Moby Dick." That said, how excited can you expect me to get about a piece where the biggest compliment I can give it is, "It's shorter than a similar piece that sucks?" So ignore that and stick with the other pieces, which are largely the crux of the Sabbath legend. "War Pigs" is most infamous for being the track where Butler's lyrics rhyme "masses" with "masses" (!), but that shouldn't obscure its various positive aspects. The crisp two-chord pounded bit between each of Ozzy's initial lines gives a neat intense effect, the simple riffage that pops up later works well, the solos are good enough, and the climactic 'jam' holds up well in comparison to that of the last album's title track. The first side also contains the ultra-infamous "Iron Man," one of Beavis and Butthead's songs of choice for air-guitar and headbanging. Is the riff stupid? More or less. Are the lyrics stupid? Oh goodness yes. Does it rule? Yeah, it rules.

The second half contains three more similar pieces that I don't find as amusing, but are nonetheless good enough at what they do. "Electric Funeral"'s main riff was another of B&B's favored songs (it's amazing how many Sabbath songs I knew from B&B even before I ever heard one of their songs on the radio), but that's not really an insult, and the introductory riff is neat too. And hey, it's got a neat midsection where Iommi starts playing off of his own riffage, bouncing back and forth from one riff to the other, and Ozzy is chanting the title in all its ridiculous glory. Let's hear it for quality unintentional humor!

"Hand of Doom" and "Fairies Wear Boots" round out the album, and they're nice too. "HoD" is most notable for being largely based off a cool introductory bassline, alternating the bass/drums-only parts with full fledged "rawk" arrangements to decent effect, before speeding up a bit to try and provide the illusion of multiple parts in order to justify the 7:10 run-time. As for "Fairies Wear Boots," well, it's got a lot of nice riffs, and a decent bluesy feel in parts, and all the sorts of things you'd expect given what you'd have heard on the album to that point. Whee.

Basically, "Rat Salad" aside, there isn't a bad track on here, and that's enough for me. I don't find myself with much of a craving to listen to it very often, and I definitely find my attention starting to drift when I'm about a half hour into it, but that's just my problem. If you think you would hate Sabbath, this is probably the best place to go to change your mind.

But dagnabbit, while I may like a skull-splitting, grungey piece of heavy riffage from time to time, I just can't get ecstatic about hearing this much of it at once. When I'm listening to heavy rock, I like speed and rushes of adrenaline and moody guitar solos and, well, everything that In Rock by Deep Purple has to offer. Or, to put my thoughts back in BS terms, I like my 70's metal albums to have stuff like "Paranoid" or "Black Sabbath" on them. Each of the heavy songs on here is nice to listen to on its own, yes (though "Lord of this World" doesn't strike me as particularly wonderful), but I'm not thrilled about having them all strung together as these are.

It also kinda hurts that the moments where the band actually takes a break from its usual shtick aren't exactly of the highest quality. "Embryo" barely counts as a track, as it's just a 30 second guitar-bass duet of some chord sequence Tony probably put together after reading a couple of chapters in a book on music theory. "Orchid" is a 90 second acoustic piece that's mildly pleasant, with well-done moody basslines giving some depth, but that also doesn't make much of an effort to develop the melody (if a couple of chords can be called a melody). And, well, the lone conventional ballad, "Solitude," doesn't even come close to filling my desire for another "Planet Caravan"-quality soft number. I'm sorry, but flutes or no flutes, Ozzy just doesn't have the kind of voice that can move me when singing soft ballads, and the song suffers accordingly.

So ultimately, I'm left with the monstrous riffs, which (despite my whining) are enough to bring the album up to an A in my eyes. Since there's only so many ways to describe songs that are all based around a few riffs (and almost NOTHING else), I will now, instead of describing the songs, describe the other aspect of the album that people tend to mention a lot; the lyrics. After the opening pro-pot anthem, "Sweet Leaf" (my favorite of the lot, possibly because it comes first), we have a nice string of anti-Satan and, sometimes, pro-Christian lyrics. Yup, "After Forever" was Christian Metal long before CCM came into vogue, with such silly oft-quoted gems as, "Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say if they knew you believe in God above? They should realize before they criticize that God is the only way to love!" And as for the others, well, we have an ode to hippie-love ("Children of the Grave"), a condemmnation of those who made Satan more powerful than God in the world ("Lord of this World"), and a look forward to being out of Satan's world and in heaven ("Into the Void"). Debates have been ongoing since this album came out about whether these lyrics were just as ironic as the band's Satanic trappings or whether they were a show of sincere admiration for Christianity, but honestly, since the God-oriented lyrics are more or less as banal as the Satan-oriented lyrics, I find the whole thing kinda silly.

In short, I do like the album quite a bit, but I just can't get as worked up about it as a lot of people seemingly can. If you live and die by riffs and heaviness, though, get it as fast as you can.

PS: For some reason, my copy has "Into the Void" as the seventh track and ends with "Solitude" (different from everybody else's copy, apparently), thus having one of the most spectacularly out-of-character endings to an album I've ever heard.

Unfortunately, a lot of the "normal" Sabbath songs fall a good deal short of the standard they'd established for themselves. "Cornucopia"'s slower riff is just waaaaaay too slow and sludgy for my tastes, and the faster one just doesn't sound like Tony was at the top of his game when he came up with it. "St. Vitus' Dance" is better at times, especially when Tony breaks out his patented tone, but the thinner lines don't really gel with the heavier ones, and it feels overall like kind of a tossoff (especially since it's a mere 2:30). And "Snowblind," well, it's ok (it's nice to see Tony can do a decent heavy song without relying on "the tone"), but it definitely wouldn't make any best-of's I'd make from the band's prime albums.

The other four songs, fortunately, are pretty much classic Sabbath, and largely make up for the deficiencies found elsewhere. The opening "Wheels of Confusion" returns the band to its multipart days, going from a whaling bluesy introduction to a series of pummelling riffs to a lengthy coda underpinned by good synths and driving riffage and intense soloing. Truth be told, it kinda seems to me that Tony was so determined to make a lengthy epic with this many good riffs that he might have robbed himself of several good songs by not spreading the riffs out over multiple tracks, but for an opener of this caliber, I'd say it was worth it.

Even better, though, is "Supernaut," which has a main riff that's easily gotta be in my top two or three from Iommi, and which is played fast of all things! And hey, there's hyper-energetic drumming that helps prove that Bill Ward really was one of the best (and pretty underrated, if you ask me) rock drummers of the early 70's. Sure, it's awfully repetitive, but this is Black Sabbath we're talking about; good repetition is fine by me.

Rounding out the album are a solid Reality-style pounder ("Tomorrow's Dream") and an attempt at a closing 'epic' ("Under the Sun"), each of which have their share of solid riffs. Unfortunately, as nice as these are, they aren't enough to raise the album dramatically in my eyes. A few nice riffs can't totally mask the beginnings of stagnation in familiar areas, and the attempts to move into new territories just don't work that well. Still, it's enjoyable, and, like all of Sabbath's early albums, you'll probably love it if you're a stoned headbanger.

Still, I'm fairly happy with what I have here, especially given what I paid for it. The sound is decent bootleg quality, which is a slight downer, and Sabbath doesn't deviate much from the originals when played live, but the song selection is decent enough (it does a good job of avoiding a Greatest Hits Live feel), so it's basically an enjoyable listen. The thing that really strikes me about these tracks is that they tend to sound even slooooooooower than they did in the studio; this actually helps make me like Snowblind much more than before, but it manages to somewhat mar my appreciation of "Sweet Leaf" (not too much, though), and makes "Cornucopia" even less enjoyable than before. I mean, if you want to compare Sabbath to a "lumbering brontosaur" as others tend to, then much of this album is basically that brontosaur stuck in a tar pit up to his knees. It's not fatal, and makes me appreciate the times when the band speeds things up even more than normal, but it does tend to bother me more than I'd like when listening.

Getting off that tangent, I'd like to say I really appreciate the 19-minute track that's listed as "Wicked World" but actually goes from that song into endless jam mode, basically like on the second side of the debut. As tedious as the guitar soloing and jamming got in the studio, it more or less works in its entirety here, mainly because the band does a decent job of varying it as it goes on. Sometimes it's Iommi wanking up a storm, sometimes it's the band breaking into the riff of Into the Void, sometimes it's the band going into an old-time blues-soul jam (with Ozzy singing appropriately), and sometimes it's the band breaking into "Supernaut" (which is really nice since it comes well into the jam, and thus makes sure I don't fall asleep too soon). Yeah, the jam closes with the obligatory drum solo, which kinda sucks, but it at least goes back into "Wicked World" before breaking from that into "Paranoid," so I'm glad.

It's tough to see what else there is to say about the album, so I'll wrap things up. The album was basically a cash-in, and some would say an inappropriate cash-in given that (by this time) Ozzy had left the band and Sabbath was now in the Dio-era, but it's decent enough if you don't expect it to live up to the standards of Made in Japan or Zeppelin's BBC Sessions. If you're really hungry for more prime Sabbath, be sure to pick this up (or, as implied earlier, Past Lives).

Of course, Sabbath isn't really the ideal band to have go out and experiment, which means that there's a massive duffer to be found within. Yes, it is the infamous "Who are You" that I speak of, which is, without a doubt, my least favorite Sabbath track from the first six albums. The synth tones sound absolutely ridiculous in this context, the melody is plodding and completely uninspiring, the lyrics can't help but be noticed in their horribleness, and ... did I mention the synth tones? I like Yes and (to a lesser extent) ELP as much as anybody, but Wakeman (who actually appears on another track) and Emerson tended to play much more interesting and engaging parts than the "majestic" lines given here, not to mention that their 'beauty' parts actually had a chance to be moving from time to time. Frankly, this is a track I cannot imagine enjoying, and if you do, I have a feeling you and I wouldn't have much in common if we met.

Other than that and the ultra-mundane "Killing Yourself to Live," though, this album is terrific. The opening title track is easily my favorite of a good bunch, as it does a good job of alternating a good anthemic heavy riff with poppy acoustic parts that keep both fresh and enjoyable, while Ozzy's ever-getting-higher voice providing a good deal of entertainment all its own (especially when he yells out "You bastards!"). Throw in an all-new heavy riff in the coda, a riff that puts half of Vol. 4 to shame, and you have a really awesome classic on your hands.

The other 'rockers', though, largely (as mentioned before) avoid the kind of heaviness that had defined the band to this point. "A National Acrobat" starts out with a nice, relatively 'light' riff, before going into a cool funky, wah-wah'd version of the riff while Ozzy plays off it well (his echoed screams at the end of certain lines sound really nice here). Throw in some brief, tasteful solos, a good "HA HA!" at one point in the coda, a totally unexpected switch to an upbeat guitar line at the end (mixed in with some other riffs), and you have another un-Sabbathy Sabbath classic.

Another un-Sabbathy Sabbath classic is "Sabbra Cadabra," which is as close as Sabbath ever came to doing a generic 70's 'bar-rock' number in their prime, and which pleases me greatly because I love humming that riff and hearing Ozzy sing his "love me til the end of tiiiiiiiiime!!!" lines as well as he does. And hey, it even has Wakeman throwing in some synth lines (not really like anything he'd use in Yes, more like his solo career tones) in the middle (which don't suck, unlike the ones in "WhoRU") and contributing some great boogie piano in the ending coda. And how about those parts in the middle where Ozzy is singing those encoded "I don't wanna leave you" lines amidst some great, tasty guitar-piano interplay, or when Ozzy is laughing at the end in such a disturbing way? Great stuff, I tell you, even if some Sabbath fanatics might disagree.

These same fanatics might wish that the rest of the tracks weren't departures from the formula in the way the aforementioned tracks are, but they'd definitely be disappointed in how things turned out. "Looking for Today" isn't brilliant, but it's a nice, very poppy (in feel and melody, though maybe not in guitar sound) number that provides a good way to close things out (at least, on my copy, which I think is supposed to have this as track seven). Plus, I think I hear flutes here and there on it, which don't really add much to the sound, but are at least amusing to note. "Spiral Architect," then, takes this slight desire for additional orchestration and goes so far as to add strings to a melody and lyrics that have to be among the most goofily pretentious and overblown of Sabbath's early career, which definitely says quite a bit. Some have gone so far as to compare it to Styx, and while that's not necessarily far off, I tend to think of this as sounding exactly like the sort of thing Spinal Tap would have written in the 70's had they really existed. But you know, as much as I love to namecheck Spinal Tap as the quintessential ridiculous rock band, that movie had some really friggin' great songs in it, and this really fits into the mold of their art-metal triumphs.

Finally, there's "Fluff," an instrumental that must have pissed off many an angry metalhead to no end. There's no way I'd ever guess that an instrumental this pretty and delicate, filled with a nice acoustic guitar theme, nice tinkly piano, some moving harpsichord and an occasional 'weeping' guitar sound in the background, was made by Black Sabbath, but here it is anyway. Sheesh, this is the kind of thing I'd expect to hear from Yes, and while that may be anathema to somebody who hates any kind of pretension and just wants ass-kicking, it's just fine by me, thank you much.

In short, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is an album made for people who wouldn't think of buying a Black Sabbath album, and made to largely annoy those who would. Since I fall into the category of "Music lover who kinda likes Sabbath sometimes" instead of "Sabbath fan," that description works just fine for me. If it works for you, get it, and even if it doesn't, it would do you some good to get it anyway. Just make sure to skip the stuff that sucks, of course.

The most obvious thing that stands out when listening to Sabotage is that the ambitions shown on the last couple of albums have only increased. Whether this was because the band really didn't want to be thought of as stupid potheads anymore, or whether it was just the drugs fooling them into thinking they were actually capable of becoming "serious artists," we may never know (I'd say a little of column A, a little of column B), but this is definitely not the Sabbath of Master of Reality. On the other hand, it's not really the Sabbath of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath either; the "artsy" elements of SBS were mostly cosmetic (and kinda perfunctory, truth be told) in nature, courtesy of synthesizers or strings or whatever. On Sabotage, the "artsy" features come from the songs themselves, through experimentation in style and structure. Furthermore, the instrumentation makes a very noticable return to the guitar-bass-drums basic sound of the '70-'71 albums, which has the beneficial effect of largely requiring the experimentation aspect to be coupled with quality riffs. The result is an album that, in many spots, can easily satisfy both an art-rock lover and a metalhead who gets off on ass-kicking riffs (as long as he can tolerate a lack of the killer tone of Reality). It should be little wonder, then, that this album is often hailed as one of the earliest examples of "prog-metal," and is almost always cited as one of the important foundations of post-70's heavy metal.

As cool as this sounds in theory, though, it doesn't cover up that there's a couple of tracks I really don't like that much. "Thrill of it All" bugs me in that the opening minute of guitar wanking just doesn't sound cool enough to me to justify its minute-long ramblings, and the main song part seems too torn between wanting to be a simplistic screech-rocker and a multi-part mini-epic to remember to bring out the best characteristics of either. I'm also not terribly fond of "The Writ," even though I like the relatively slow first part, which combines moderate heaviness with a weird "bubbly" effect on the bass that sounds to me like Sabbath has been drawing on the same muses as Pink Floyd. But sheesh, the variations of the theme that make up the middle chunk of the piece don't inspire me at all (and I'm not sure having the second vocalist trying to harmonize with Ozzy was such a good idea here, and that's not even mentioning the whispering of "cats" and "rats" at various times), and when Ozzy goes into melodramatic mode from time to time, it gets really stupid sounding. I mean, I'm all for maturity, but only when it's done right; otherwise it tends to cross the line into "laughably pathetic," which parts of "The Writ" definitely do.

Fortunately, I tend to like everything else on the album quite a bit, so a good grade still comes to this album from me. For some reason I still can't fathom, George Starostin ripped on the opening "Hole in the Sky" as predicting "their soon-to-come downfall into the world of mediocrity," but I just can't see it. It's a slightly different kind of metal than what they had done before, but that's fine with me, as I was never a giant fan of their previous metal styles anyway. It cycles through a small set of easy-flowing distorted riffs with Ozzy throwing in one of his best absurdly-high-pitched vocal performances yet, and has such a nice vibe of moderate ass-kicking that I can't help but enjoy it to death. Then, after a brief (and kinda pointless) acoustic instrumental, we hit "Symptom of the Universe," which pretty much invents the chugging heavy riffage that characterized 80's Metallica and other related bands. The main riff is simple but fabulous (making it simply fabulous, I guess), Ozzy's singing sounds incredibly intense as it crashes against the main rhythm, the brief speedy section has quality soloing that Tony couldn't have even tried to pull off five years ago, and then out of nowhere they end it with Ozzy singing over a cool Spanishy acoustic guitar section. Man, if the entire album sounded as inspired as this track, I'd name it as Sabbath's best in a heartbeat, and maybe even consider an overall rating upgrade. But alas, I'll just have to settle for this piece of Sabbath perfection.

Up next is the 9-and-a-half minute "Megalomania," which I don't find as great as some people I know do but nonetheless entertains me quite a bit. The opening slower section is longer than I'd prefer, but it does have that neat effect of (twice) fading in Ozzy's vocals with incessant overdubs until he actually starts singing. And come to think of it, I do like the wailing, moody and dark bits of guitar sounds that surround Ozzy as he builds to lines like, "Why doesn't everybody leave me alone," so really, the only thing I have against the opening section is that it's drawn out too long (then again, I like Yes' "Ritual," which pretty much marks me as a hypocrite in this matter). As for the second part, it didn't really get me that much the first few times I heard it, but then one day while walking home from work, I found that not only couldn't I get the riffage and vocal hookage out of my head, but I really enjoyed singing those parts to myself almost ad nauseum. Overall, then, the song could probably be cut down to six minutes without much problem, but the stretched-out length doesn't exactly leave me feeling cheated out of precious seconds of life, so I can largely ignore that little quibble (and besides, I'd be bummed if the three minutes cut from it would include Ozzy's out-of-nowhere "SUCK MEEEEEEEE!!!").

The other two tracks tend to split some fans a bit, but I'm fine with them. "Supertzar" is definitely the most atypical track they had yet done, but it's a case where I largely applaud the band's creativity. Over the standard "dark" instrumentation, we have what I can only describe as "The Monk Choir of the Damned," as the concept of Gregorian chanting is totally turned on its head and stripped of any and all positive spiritual connotations. It seems kinda silly when I take a step back and think about it, and I can see where some might want to see this as a clear example of the band going off the deep end, but I'm cool with it. Just as I am with the surprisingly synth-drenched pop-rocker "Am I Going Insane (Radio)?," which functions extremely well as a contrast to the over-overblown The Writ (on my copy, "Am I Going Insane" actually ends the album, even though on most the closer is "The Writ;" that makes three Sabbath albums I own that have the ordering of the last two tracks wrong). What can I say, the chorus rules, the guitar breaks are surprisingly melodic, the synths don't really interfere much, and there's disturbing laughter at the end. Fine by me.

Overall, then, I kinda want to give this album a higher grade than I actually do, since I like to dwell on positives instead of negatives, and maybe I should. Then again, those two tracks I don't like really bug me, so I guess I'll just keep it where it is. Regardless, this is a crucial album to own for anybody who calls themselves a Black Sabbath fan, and is just as essential in understanding the overall nature of the band as is Master of Reality or Paranoid. Besides, this the last Black Sabbath studio album that I can say I like with no reservations (the first couple of Dio ones are okay but only have a song or two each that I tend to love), so it can probably be considered a farewell of sorts to the band's prime (as you will see from the ratings of the next way too many albums).

Indeed, as soon as I heard the opening notes of "Back Street Kids," I knew this wasn't going to be an album I'd particularly enjoy. It kinda kicks ass, sure, but as I immediately realized, the verses have no riff; the "riff" is just a bunch of distorted chords laid over Ward and Butler's generic, mid-tempo rhythmic chugging. Fortunately, Iommi recovers a bit to have a little (actual) riff that pops up between verses, which helps the impression a bit, and as the song goes on, Ozzy's chorus sung to that same riff establishes itself as a pretty effective hook, so the song is at least passable to my ears. In the following song, the bluesy "You Won't Change Me," the opening features a decent downward phrase of notes, but then the guitars (in the verses, anyway) largely give into just hitting some power chords between interludes from an organ. That said, Ozzy's delivery is strangely passionate, and the bluesy solos that Iommi pulls off in various breaks in the middle would do Jimmy Page himself proud, so it's rather hard for me to trash this song too much.

Unfortunately, beyond this point, there's just way too many songs that make a dent in my brain's wretch-o-meter. True, I am extremely fond of the Ward-sung (!) "It's Alright," a quality piano ballad that wouldn't sound at all out of place on a good John Lennon solo album, but the rest all registers somewhere between "ehn" and "BLEH" in my mind. "Gypsy" jumps between middling 'hard'-rock (there is a decent riff for a little bit in the the middle, though) and a half-hearted ABBA imitation (yeah, I know that George Starostin made this comparison already, but how can I help it if he's right?), and doesn't really do either aspect proud. "All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" is a sorta bluesy-in-parts rocker that completely slips out of my mind at song's end, "Dirty Woman" starts out as a mediocre "looking-for-a-hooker" anthem before entering what's actually a halfway decent boogie-rock groove at the end (with nice soloing), and "Rock'n'Roll Doctor" is just a total disaster as far as Sabbath rockers go. Plus, the string-laden over-sentimental "She's Gone" just doesn't stir a single bit of emotion within me; if I didn't like Sabbath's over-sentimental ballads in their "classic" days, what chance do I have by getting moved by one in 1976? Not much, that's for sure.

What's strangest to me is that this was apparently intended to be Sabbath's greatest, artsiest, most "intellectual" album yet; I've even heard that Iommi wanted this album to be a rock opera, but had to pull back when he realized Butler wouldn't be able to come up with decent enough lyrics to stay within a highbrow concept. Alas, the band's ambitions, on one hand, and its problems with rampant drug use, on the other (thus cutting into the band's creativity) had managed to largely pull the band apart at the seams, and this album demonstrates that fully. Ozzy made no secret about not liking this album, and I have to concur with the man. Don't get this unless you really love Ozzy-era Black Sabbath, and even then you should take a moment to ask yourself if you really want to waste money on this.

...

You know, I honestly didn't think this album would be this bad. Sure, my Russian clone gave this a 3/10 on his site, and most (though strangely not all) Sabbath fans tend to look at this as the black sheep of the Ozzy era, but Prindle gave it a 7/10 and called it a relative improvement over Technical Ecstacy, so I figured there might be a decent chance of enjoying this on my part. Besides, when I listened to various tracks off this as background noise well before I started reviewing the band, nothing really jumped out at me as hideous (though nothing as really special), so I didn't think I'd find the total listening experience so bad.

Well, guess what, I'm an idiot. In retrospect, I should have known that the circumstances surrounding the making of this album more or less guaranteed this would be a dud (short version: Ozzy kicked out for drug abuse, band brings him back a year later, Ozzy refuses to sing on any material they've written without him, album is recorded and written in about a week), but it never occurred to me that I'd hate this album this much. The biggest problem, as far as I'm concerned, is that they've managed to continue down the identity-crisis road that largely led to the downfall of Technical Ecstacy, only without actually giving themselves the chance to fully flesh-out their misconceived ideas. They've basically dumped metal completely in favor of a weird combination of punk, arena-rock and some artsy excess, but while that could in theory be almost intriguing (not likely, though), this album has the band doing the mixture all wrong. It largely reminds me of a Dilbert strip from many years ago where Dogbert, in an attempt to create the perfect man, accidentally creates somebody with the body of Ghandi and the mind of Wilt Chamberlain. Does an album largely consisting of a blotch of power chords (you can mostly forget about actual riffs here, though a couple of songs have passable ones) stretched out over 5-6 minute increments, interspersed with a couple of amazingly mediocre "soft" ballads (that are largely only distinguished by some uninteresting piano randomly thrown on top), with terrible vocals (Ozzy doesn't exactly sound like he's trying here) and production throughout, sound particularly appetizing to you? I didn't think so.

I will admit that the album starts off fairly alright, at least as long as I lower my expectations considerably. The opening title track has a decent vocal melody to go with generic (but energetic) drumming under Iommi basically sleepwalking, so it can stick around. "Johnny Blade" would make a decent punkish song if it lasted for 3 minutes instead of 6:27, and got rid of those stupid keyboard noises, and "Junior's Eyes" has a decent (though TERRIBLY produced) bassline throughout, over which Tony has fun with his wah-wah pedal as he repeats an amusing riff ad infinitum, so they're not so bad.

Alas, the album goes off a cliff at this point. Two terrible (and lasting seemingly forever) 'rockers' follow the opening trio, which are then in turn followed by two terrible 'ballads' that I'll be perfectly happy never to hear again. And what's this, two-and-a-half minutes of uninteresting brass (with some occasional dull sax wailing) mirroring Tony as he plays an uninteresting riff again and again? Oh joy! But wait, we haven't gotten to the ending "Swinging the Chain," where Bill sings lead in a spectacularly undercooked, still-in-the-formative-stages number that seemingly serves no purpose except to say to the listener, "No, really, we had to record this album way too quickly, and if you don't believe us, here's the proof." I would never ever guess that this was the finished version of a track if I didn't know it already; this just screams out "bonus track: Swinging the Chain (rough mix)."

Oh man what a terrible album. Needless to say, Ozzy was gone for good (well, basically) after this one, and I actually end up understanding why the band didn't call it a day; they didn't want to go out on as poor a note as this one. For completists only.

For better and worse, the band chose Rainbow alumnus Ronnie James Dio to fill the role of lead singer for the group. On the good side, Ronnie really had a great metal voice; it wasn't as distinctive as Ozzy's, and as such the band's vocals sound much more generic now than they once did, but there's a good deal of power to be found in Ronnie's chords that Ozzy just couldn't measure up to. On the bad side, Dio had apparently missed the memo that said that the band's lyrical obsession with the devil and other "dark" matters was largely tongue-in-cheek. I don't know if Dio took over the lyric-writing duties from Geezer or whether he just persuaded Geezer to start writing about generic D&D topics, but whatever happened, the lyrics are largely terrible on this album, and what's worse, Dio is obviously taking them 100% seriously. There are more than a few times in listening to this album that I'll hear a line that will start me giggling something fierce, and that's not really a good thing. It is solely due to the lyrics that this is an album I'd be extremely loathe to play in the company of others, one that I'd expect (unless they knew the joke ahead of time) would cause me major embarressment as I tried to explain that most of my collection isn't like this.

Yet as much as the lyrics make me consistently cringe, I actually tend to like this album. The band is firmly back into metal-land here, but this isn't the kind of riff-based metal that made them so infamous back in the day. No, this is extremely generic metal, based not around proper riffs but cycling through brief, seemingly random snippets of "heavy" note sequences, which some metalheads call "melodic" but which I call way too rambling to take on that adjective. This is the kind of metal where the power comes not from a solid foundation of ass-kickitude, but instead largely comes from the quality of the vocal melodies and the energy produced by the players as they do their thing. And guess what, Heaven and Hell works pretty decently for me on that level.

It also helps that I really, really like the opening "Neon Knights," despite the ridiculous title and the even more ridiculous lyrics. One thing that immediately stands out for me is that this is the first time Sabbath has tried opening an album with a speedy metal tune in a classic Deep Purple way (the last two openers were kinda speedy but weren't exactly metal), and the first time is definitely a charm here. The speedy riff is simple but intense, the vocal melody goes fabulously with it, the vocal counter-melody works just as well, the mid-song solo is effective ... Aside from the lyrics, I can't think of a single thing wrong with the song, and believe me that's a relief after the last couple of albums.

The rest of the album doesn't entertain me as much as does the opener, but most of the tracks at least have something that I enjoy quite a bit. "Children of the Sea" opens and closes with some lovely acoustic balladry, and while the main "heavy" chunk of the song is extremely generic mid-tempo plodding, I actually really enjoy the way Dio sings the "Oh they saaaaaaid it was oooooover" parts. Of course, I always bust out when I hear him sing about doing the "demon dance," (which reminds me of the "doom dance," an attack by an enemy in Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest), but hey, I covered that already. "Lady Evil" always makes me think for a split second that the band is going to break into "Gemini Dream," and it's an accordingly bizarre 'dance metal' song that I should probably hate, but ehn, I can listen to it fine if nobody else catches me in the act. And hey, the title track has a fine main riff to go with the disco trappings, which give it a fine enough groove to at least somewhat justify the 7 minute length.

The next three tracks are kinda mediocre (not terrible, though; even the oft-bashed "Die Young" doesn't make me wretch), but the album makes sure to end on a relatively high note with "Lonely is the Word." The riff is fine (not so much for melody as for rhythm), Dio puts on a good show, the solos are the best I've heard from Tony since "You Won't Change Me," the synths actually help the mood, and it seems (to me, at least) much shorter than 5:49. A nice closing indeed.

Truth be told, if the lyrics didn't irritate me so much, and if there were maybe one or two more semi-classics on here, I'd be pretty close to calling this an amazing comeback, the band's best since Paranoid. Black Sabbath may have, by making this kind of album, totally given up any pretense of ever again being on the cutting edge, but at least they were able to enter a slight groove of decency. If you really want to hear post-Ozzy studio Sabbath, this should be your first stop.

I mean, come on, Heaven and Hell had its faults, but it never stooped to as something as overwhelmingly stupid as the near-instrumental "E5150" (ie E-5-1-50 or, in Roman numerals, E-V-I-L, ooooh scary). Ever wondered what "FX" would sound like with "evil" encoded vocals saying "Satan loves you" (I think that's what it is, anyway) and some of the ugliest synth and guitar noises imaginable? Well, here you are. I will admit that it works well as an eerie show opener (as on Live Evil), but in the context of the album it not only sounds ridiculous to my ears, it literally fills me with an urge to vomit. Who knows, maybe there really is something evil in it and my spirit is just reacting badly to it, but I think it's more likely that I can't stand the idea of having anymore of my time wasted by this thing.

More tangibly, the album really sounds weak to me once we get past the halfway point or so. "Country Girl" starts out as a solid riff-based stomper, but when it starts to make a half-hearted metamorphosis into a country song, it has me running back to the city. "Slipping Away" comes as close to outright thievery as one can get without total plagiarism (see: the opening riff of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by the Stones), and the two monster ballads (well, sort of) that close out the album aren't exactly my idea of a great listening experience. There's no "Lonely is the Word" here to end things on an up note, that's for sure.

Fortunately, the album starts out pretty strongly, so the album isn't a total waste. The opening "Turn Up the Night" is pretty close to a "Neon Knights" clone, but hey, I liked the original, so this isn't the absolute worst thing in the world. Voodoo is typically silly lyrically, but it has a nice riff and a great vocal delivery ("Voooooodooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"), which means I enjoy it quite a bit. And as for "Sign of the Southern Cross," which is kinda this album's version of "Children of the Sea," it could be a bit shorter and less overblown, and it does kinda serve as the prototype of all the piles of ick that would come to represent Sabbath at its lowest ebb, but I can't get myself to really despise it, so I won't fight my instincts.

So any really good news, and not just a bunch of damning with faint praise? Yeah, there is, in the form of the title track, which has everything that a great heavy metal anthem needs. You've got the fast and intricate riff, you've got the great vocals (and great vocal melody to boot), you've got the great guitar solos in the break, and you've even got some decent lyrics for a change (political instead of D&D, imagine that). In short, that all adds up to a BS classic.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about this album. It's decent, but ehn, lots of albums are decent. If you see it cheap and really need more Sabbath, consider it, but I'd also advise waiting for it to be discounted even further.

The main intrigue of the album, however, comes from the six Ozzy-era BS tracks that get to receive Dio's, um, "interpretation." You will recall from my H&H review that I said that Dio didn't exactly get the joke of Sabbath's "satanic" vibes, and took it much more seriously than Ozzy ever did. Whereas Ozzy sang about "evil" matters as a detached, "scientific" third-party, Dio revels in the opportunity to pretend that he's an earthly manifestation of the horned one. On the one hand, this means I can't help but bust out laughing a couple of times each in both "N.I.B." and "Black Sabbath," but on the other, the power and conviction with which he delivers his lines helps make these two tracks into monstrous metal classics. This is especially true of "N.I.B.," where Dio's singing and the sheer metallic POWER of Tony's guitar playing create one of my favorite hard-rock/heavy-metal experiences ever, and definitely one I prefer to the original.

The other four Ozzy tracks he takes on are largely predictable, and he does a good job with all of them except for "Paranoid," which could stand to have a bit less in the way of his voice randomly cracking into falsetto between the usual growls. On the other hand, he sounds friggin' GREAT on "Iron Man," where he manages to do the low-pitched "I AM IRON MAN!!!" roar without vocal encoding better than Ozzy ever would have been able to with the encoding, and he sounds just fine on "War Pigs" and the closing "Children of the Grave." A predictable and rather conservative set of Ozzy standards, sure, but he does the songs well.

As for the other band members: the drums are filled by one Vinnie Appice (Bill left before they recorded The Mob Rules), and he's okay, though I could really live without the predictable drum solo stuck onto the end of "War Pigs." Butler does his usual quality job on bass (no "Bassically" before "N.I.B.," but oh well), and Tony does a nice job considering that he was coming close to straddling the line between being a 70's metal giant and an 80's metal wanker. The tone isn't of the kind that made him so infamous back on Master of Reality, as it tends more to "somewhat heavy with layers upon layers of distortion over it" instead of "so heavy I think my apartment's going to sink into the floor below me," but I got used to that pretty quickly. Besides, on numbers where the heaviness is naturally carried more by the bass than by the guitar anyway (like, say, "N.I.B.," or most of the Dio-era stuff), this works out really well, so I'm not really griping. And hey, he'd gotten to be a good soloist over the years, so that helps too.

So there's your live album. If you're interested in Dio-era Sabbath, you should probably get this before either of the studio albums, and if you're interested in hearing "N.I.B." the way nature intended it, you'll definitely want this. Plus, whereas it used to be available only as a bulky 2-CD album, it was re-released as a 1-CD edit, which means you can get it without much expense. Enjoy it; it's the last very good Sabbath album until Reunion.

Such was the decision to bring in Ian Gillan as the band's new lead singer (Dio left because he thought Iommi wasn't evil enough, and Iommi was mad at Dio for mixing his vocals so high on Live Evil; ok, the evil thing is probably just a rumor, and supposedly it's more to do with the credits on Live Evil being written differently than they were on the two studio albums). Yes, it is true, the Ian Gillan of early 70's Deep Purple fame is my favorite metal vocalist of all time, but this was 1983, and Ian didn't age well at all. As I already said in my review of DP's Perfect Strangers, "The low-key power he'd had in his 'normal' range before had largely dissipated by this time into creakiness, and when he'd try to go loud, or, heaven help us, high, it could be downright painful to listen to." Well, guess what, not only does he manage to ruin this album in much the same way he ruined PS, he also finds a way to make himself sound even worse; he tries to sound evil. Just take a minute to soak this in; "evil" lyrics and vocals from the man who played Jesus Christ in Andrew Lloyd Weber's infamous rock opera. Besides, one of the main points of appeal of early 70's Deep Purple (to me, at least) was the completely non-evil nature of the lyrics, to the point that DP was almost the anti-Sabbath. The very notion of Ian singing about "the force of the devil" and "the prince of evil" and screaming "Death! Death! Death!" is pure ridiculousness, and that doesn't even account for his "spooky" laughing in "Disturbing the Priest." And to think that Ian is the most prominent feature of the final mix, putting his shattered voice front and center! At least Dio could sing on Live Evil!

You know, I'm finding that I'm going about this review in much the same way that seemingly every negative review of it goes, namely slamming aspects of it in general without particularly talking about the songs, but I really can't help it. This album and everything relating to it oozes sheer idiocy, from the stupid choice of Gillan and his equally terrible performance, to a spectacularly bad album cover that even most of the band hated, to the debacle with the Stonehenge stage set, to the spectacularly bad lyrics even when they're not devoted to "evil," to whatever else I'm forgetting. To be fair, there are parts of the album that aren't particularly bad; I like the riffage and chorus of "Zero the Hero" quite a bit, and both of the last two tracks have a decent amount of entertaining guitar work. But you know, I strongly suspect that my mildly positive feelings to these songs are largely a function of the cesspool that surrounds them, where stupidly "evil" tracks alternate with "thrash" rockers that vocally, lyrically, riffally and productionally represent Sabbath's lowest ebb to that point (I mean, even Never Say Die didn't have these badly produced electronic drums crashing into the bass and guitars. I'm somehow guessing Bill Ward didn't think this was what he'd be getting into when he came back for this album).

Sheesh, this just terrible. I will admit that I can see how somebody could enjoy parts of it, as some parts are so noisily ugly that they develop a sort of perverse intensity, but seeing how somebody could enjoy it sure isn't the same as enjoying it.

If your music tastes are anything like mine, I don't see how you can possibly think this album is anything but absolutely terrible. I mean, if it wasn't bad enough that the album contains every bad cliche of 80's pop metal ('riffage' that has no riffs, only some semblance of syncopation; horrendous power ballads; poor production of and sounds from every instrument), the album's lead singer is GLENN F$%&(*$%NG HUGHES. Yes, that's right, Tony followed up working with a washed-up member of Deep Purple Mk. 2 by working with a man whose time in DP Mk.'s 3 and 4 raise the question of if he ever had anything of note to wash up. Glenn, for those of you not versed in DP lore, is a man who apparently believed he had the spirit of Funk and Soul within him, but who manifested this through some of the most ridiculously unconvincing vocals and songwriting imaginable. Yes, he was a decent enough bassist (I guess) in DP, but guess what, he only does vocals here, meaning that we get Glenn without the one mildly positive aspect he could bring to the table. His voice, in theory, is ok, but for this kind of music, it's about as inappropriate as one can imagine, with an effect analogous to topping off a cheese souffle with velveeta from an aerosol can.

Ok, ok, there are some positives that keep me from giving this a 1. First, the album's reasonably short, going only about 35 minutes. Second, there are a couple of instances where, in rhythmic terms, Tony sounds more than a cut above your average 80's studio hack. Third, ehn, the opening "In for the Kill" is kinda catchy (though I don't like the song enough to call it a "best" song; nothing on here deserves that). Otherwise, though, I find this thoroughly wretched, and it's largely the knowledge that the worst is yet to come that causes me to pull back a bit in slamming this waste of digital matter. Buy this only to pull a practical joke on somebody.

But, as so many others like to point out, while this album may suck in more than a few parts of its very existence, it's dramatically helped by the way it almost seems two albums are playing at once, one of which is ridiculous and one of which is Tony Iommi having his best outing in years. For the first time in a while, Tony actually focuses not on just endless chugging rhythm work, but on actual, no-doubt-about-it riffs. The incredibly fast and powerful one to "Hard Life to Love" is my favorite (oh man, I don't think I've heard him write a riff that good since "Supernaut"), but the riffs on "Glory Ride" (especially the opening one, but I like the one in the chorus too) and "Born to Lose" definitely should go into the Iommi Hall of Fame. Notice should also be given to the opener, "The Shining," which goes from a lovely beginning to another solid riff, which is able to make the ridiculous "RISE UP to the shining" chorus sound really neat by underpinning it. And let us not forget the quality thrash-work of "Lost Forever," which has a decent enough riff to overshadow the slightly eyebrow-raising realization that the band is now imitating all of the bands that had largely been imitating "Symptom of the Universe." But whatever.

You will notice that I've said little in describing the songs that didn't mention the riffage. Well, again, there's a reason for that; aside from the nice acoustic instrumental "Scarlet Pimpernel," these songs completely depend on Iommi's heavy guitar riffs to avoid becoming deplorable. If any proof is absolutely needed, turn to the closing title track, dominated by Tony M. instead of Tony I., which is too much like the muck that I'd hate so much on the next album (see below) for me to feel happy. And this is why, despite being an album I mostly like when I'm only paying attention to the riffs, I only want to give this a 7; take away the riffs, and you get something miserable. And look, there's Tony Martin over there. He is the riffage thief; say goodbye to the riffs. He is the riffage thief; auf wiedesrehen to the riffs ...

I don't actually know anything about the events that transpired during the recording of this album, so I'm going to make some baseless speculation. My guess is that a decent number of old Sabbath fans, and some metal fans in general, took notice of Eternal Idol and lauded it as a pretty surprising comeback. Alas, instead of realizing that this fondness was almost exclusively because of Iommi's riffs, they (the band) assumed that this was because of Martin's powerful vocals, Geoffrey Nichol's ominous synths, and the booming, menacing drums. In short, instead of emphasizing the good parts (er, "part") of Idol, the band decided to emphasize EVERYTHING THAT SUCKED ABOUT THAT ALBUM. Ooooh, they brought in famous drummer Cozy Powell, I'm so impressed at how hard he hits those drums. Well, maybe he's good live, but there's so much ridiculous echo on his kit that he's virtually indistinguishable from the most anonymous hack.

You know what my first clue was that I was going to not just hate this album, but loathe it completely? The first track is a stupid sounding minute-long instrumental (called "The Gates of Hell!" How's that for revelling in cliche??) that basically consists of low-pitched gurgling synth noises with high-pitched "scary" synth noises on top of it. Still, I thought that perhaps this was a lengthy introduction to a hard, driving rocker, and that any moment there'd be a sudden cut into some loud, low-pitched riffage. But no! It cuts into a plodding 4-4 echoey dragging drum beat (rule # 473 of my music quality book: "ominous" introductions CANNOT be immediately followed by 4-4 echoey dragging drums)! Not only did I have to now deal with the silly title track, but I had to adjust my thinking to realize that "The Gates of Hell" was not meant to be taken as an introduction, but as a stand-alone track. Man, at least "E5150" had the courtesy to break into "The Mob Rules!"

Ok, I'll admit there's moments that show bits of promise. For instance, the initial riff to the title track (at least, after that stupid intro), before it gets swallowed up by Martin's endless blabbing about something that I don't care about (but boy, does he sound like he cares! Gargh). Or the first time I hear the "WHEN DEATH CALLS" chorus, or the first time I hear the riff of "Black Moon" (before it tries to be a ridiculous hybrid of late 80's death metal and Mk. 3 Deep Purple at its worst). But you know what? Calling All Stations has moments I like. ThraKaTTaK has moments that I like. But this album, just like those, makes me despise it on a level that cannot be saved by a few passable moments. This album symbolizes Everything That I Do Not Want To Hear In Hard Rock Or Heavy Metal (ETIDNWTHIHROHM for short). It tries to rock, it tries to be "serious," it tries to make you want to get up and dance at times, and it fails at all of these tasks.

Man, does Iommi even play on this album? Did some people really get into Black Sabbath because of this album? Is the All Music Guide SERIOUS when it gives this 4 stars out of 5? Do some people REALLY think that this was a better kind of music than what Nirvana did? This album just creates more questions than answers, and every one of these questions scares the pants off of me. Avoid.

For some reason I don't hate this album as much as its predecessor, even though (as far as I know) it's generally considered the absolute nadir of Black Sabbath's career (unless you're into really generic goth metal, I guess). Maybe it's the slightly better production, with the keyboards a little less prominent before and the guitar marginally more so. Maybe it's the relatively high level of acoustic guitar, even if Iommi still sounds infinitely less accomplished without being plugged into something. Maybe it's because the album's badness makes me giggle at times, where HC made me wretch almost start to finish. Most likely, though, it's that I heard Headless Cross first, and it had the misfortune to receive the brunt of my hatred for these albums that do everything they possibly can to make me hate them.

I mean, if the best I can do in terms of praise for an album is say that some aspects of it make it slightly better than HEADLESS CROSS, what do you expect me to think of that album? Sabbath is still doing the same kind of arsty death-metal-crossed-with-generic-arena-rock that they foisted on me with HC, but they've managed to make it seem somewhat different by ostensibly making it a concept album vaguely involving Nordic gods. The extent of the concept, of course, involves doing a lazy goth-metal introduction ("Anno Mundi," which at least has a semi-passable heavy Iommi part pop up here and there) and having a 3-song mini-suite in the middle that isn't spectacularly offensive in anyway except possibly in how few (read: none) interesting things happen in those songs. Otherwise, there's a SPECTACULARLY terrible arena-rock semi-ballad in "Jerusalem" (take away the arty lyrics and this is no different from a legion of songs designed to bring those lighters out), another one in "Feels Good to Me" (which at least doesn't pretend to be anything than a terrible arena-rock ballad, which at least reduces the they're-stupid-because-they-think-they're-smart factor), and a spectacularly boring, plodding and "dramatic" anthemic dirge in "Sabbath Stones."

To the album's credit, though, it does include a couple of songs that at least manage to stand out as highlights amidst all of the surrounding blech; of course, this is hardly a rosy compliment, especially given that "The Law Maker" sounds like one of the Seventh Star rockers and that "Heaven in Black" is centered around endless chugga-chugga-chugga-ing. Whatever, at least they have some vague semblance of actual intensity and crispness, which can't be said for the rest.

In summary, this album is:

I guess what strikes me the most in listening to this is that Black Sabbath actually sounds competent for the first time in a while. Sure, I'm not particularly thrilled with the end result, but that never-ending feeling of "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" that I got in the last few albums (barring Eternal Idol, of course) is largely gone. If Black Sabbath is a baseball team, and Headless Cross and TYR are a young pitcher who was given a huge signing bonus coming out of high school but has gone 2-13 with an ERA above 7, Dehumanizer is the team replacing him in the rotation with a veteran left-hander whom you can count on to go 10-9 with an ERA in the high 4's. Yeah, it's still a crappy situation, but it's an improvement at the least. If nothing else, Iommi actually sounds like a central figure on this album, whereas on the last two he was largely pushed into the background by terrible vocals and silly sounding keyboards. Of course, the riffs aren't anything particularly great, and they don't get sustained for very long, but this actually sounds like a late-period Black Sabbath album, where the last couple sounded like they were anything but. Geezer and Vinnie are there to support Iommi, and they do an adequate job of it, which is nice to have again.

Oh, right, there's also Dio. Dio still sounds surprisingly good, with a slightly lower growl than I'm used to from him, but unless you're really a metalhead, you'll probably get very tired of hearing him over the course of an hour or so. He's really jumping out of his skin to make sure everybody knows that he's back in Sabbath, and that he can compete with any youngin', but I'm not particularly impressed (especially since a lot of those youngin's were largely imitating Dio in the first place). The lyrics aren't D&D fantasy dreck anymore, but they're still overly obsessed with doom and death (now in the context of modern technology), and (as with most Sabbath lyrics) don't really add much in terms of enjoyment.

I guess this is just one of those albums that separates the true metal believers from those only pretending to be hardcore headbangers. Truth be told, I don't at all hate listening to this as background music, especially if I can let my attention lapse from it for particularly long periods of time and inevitably come back to hear Iommi aggressively pounding a passable riff and Dio bellowing out his lyrics (to vocal melodies that could be a lot worse). It's just when I actually try to sort out in my mind what I've heard, trying to remember which riff snippet goes with which song, and which parts I liked and didn't, that I realize that very very little of it has any lingering impact on me. Except for the chorus of "TV Crime," the main riff to "Master of Insanity" (which is the "Wanton Song" riff, as everybody else who's ever reviewed this album has noted), and the intense riffing of the simply titled "I," I really cannot tell you how a single moment of this goes. I do get the feeling, however, that if I were to train my metal-listening ears better than I have, I'd be able to pick out parts I'd like and like this more than I do. So despite giving me basically nothing in song-specific positives, I give it a 6 out of deference to not hating the sound. So there.

It also helps that Iommi came up with a really great riff (and some other decent ones too) for the first time in about seven years. "Immaculate Deception" can easily take its place in the post-Ozzy Black Sabbath hall of fame (*snicker*) solely based on its riff, even if the keyboards end up trying to compete with Iommi for dominating the sound of the song. "Psychophobia" also has a remarkably quick and heavy riff (largely wasted, of course), "Virtual Death" has a bit of the slow, spooky and heavy in the classic BS style thing going on with its riff, and "Back to Eden" (ugh, these titles are still SO TERRIBLE) has a riff that's largely Eternal Idol-worthy.

Unfortunately, I just about exhausted all the positive aspects of this album in that last paragraph. A few good riffs just aren't enough to save a late-period Sabbath album, as there are still too many negatives around for me to feel good about this album. There are, predictably, a handful of wretched power ballads ("Cross of Thorns," "Dying for Love," "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"), which I'm sure that Tony, Tony and Associates thought would give a nice "change of pace" to the album, but instead serve as a sobering reminder that the band isn't that far removed now from way too many other metal bands. That the album just about crashes and dies with the last three tracks doesn't help things either, as it manages to undo most of the good accomplished in my mind by "Back to Eden." And, you know, even in the midst of the good riffs in the middle of the album, I find myself getting bored with the other aspects of the songs that boast those riffs, and thus I end up feeling ridiculously bored by the end. Congratulations, Cross Purposes; even when you're good, you manage to remind me why I'm not a metalhead.

So there it is in all its wretched glory. It's not as hideous as many other Sabbath albums, but we're a long long way from Paranoid.

It's actually kind of a shame that this album has so much about it that I find actively offensive, because there are a few decent riffs popping up here and there that would probably sound nice in a different context. As is, though, an exchange I had with my brother while I was listening to this on headphones (loud enough and on poor enough headphones for him to hear) sums everything up pretty well.

"What is that crap you're listening to?"

"It's that terrible Black Sabbath album I was telling you about last night, the one with that really stupid album cover."

" ... ... John, why in the hell do you do this to yourself?"

"Right now, I honestly don't know."

The album gets a 4 for some decent riffs and the fact that it does so little to standout that it doesn't make enough of an impact for me to loathe it. Don't buy it; nobody did in 1995, and some things just shouldn't change.

Some little complaints can be made, of course. There's nothing from Sabotage (no "Symptom of the Universe?" Hmmph), the lone Vol 4 representative is "Snowblind" (no "Supernaut?" Hmmph), and the only 'obscure' tracks are "Dirty Women" from Technical Ecstacy (no "Rock'n'Roll Doc" .... er, never mind) and "Spiral Architect" (which I have no gripes about). Consequently, the bulk of the show is the primary songs from Paranoid (Hand of Doom excluded) and Master of Reality ("After Forever" excluded), with the title track, "Behind the Wall of Sleep" and "N.I.B." (including the "Bassically" bridge!) representing the debut (SBS is also represented by the title track). The band also plays the songs pretty close to the vest; only on "Dirty Women" does it seem that the band stretches out a bit (and even then, the band had stretched out in more or less the same way in the studio version).

Honestly, though, it's really too late at this juncture to expect any 'revelations' from the performances (though I did kinda like "Fairies Wear Boots" more than on the studio version), so holding the band tightly to that standard seems unneccessary. No, the purpose of Reunion is to present in a flourish the many high points of the band, as well as to help wash out all the crud that had come from years of defaming the band's name. The band sounds absolutely MONSTROUS in performing these songs; the drums may be slightly amplified (I think so, anyway, though I could be wrong), and the guitar tone is more processed than it was in the glory days, but there's nothing otherwise to forcibly remind me that this is the band 20 years past its prime. Ozzy sounds just fine (it gets a little tiring hearing him use the f-word in every possible manner, but it's also really funny), Geezer and Bill are as tight as can be, and Tony's guitar is loud and low and pounding, just as it should be. And hey, they even do the "Embryo" introduction to "Children of the Grave" and "Orchid" (in all its banal glory, heh) before "Lord of this World;" now that's attention to detail!

Beautiful, just beautiful. The temptation is even there to give this a top score instead of Paranoid (though I'll refrain because that has a decent vibe of creativity, whereas this is just a display of past creativity, if you follow me). It's as if the last 20 years, ridiculous lineup switches and doom metal cliches and all, have never happened, and that's a pleasant thought. Of course, the album ends with a couple of new studio tracks, and they kinda suck, but who cares? I don't.

It's hard to give this album more or less than an 8. Dio sounds very good for a man of his age, and it's a hoot to hear his refined, noble speaking voice between songs, but his falsetto is completely gone here (at least he doesn't try to pretend he still has it), and he's still singing some terrible, terrible lyrics. Plus, while Dio did a number of very good songs with Sabbath, he didn't do that many, and the show seems a little wanting for great material after a while. I will admit that "Computer God" ends up sounding a lot more powerful separated from other Dehumanizer tracks, and "I" sounds great (the opening "After All (The Dead)" still doesn't do a lot for me), so Dehumanizer is represented decently. The Mob Rules is represented by the title track (great!), "Voodoo" (good like the original, though Dio's wailings at the end are a little dumb), "Sign of the Southern Cross" (sounds terrific here) and "Falling Off the Edge of the World" (never really liked the original version, this one is ok). Heaven and Hell is represented by everything except for "Wishing Well" and "Walk Away," and the songs are still fun melody-wise and the dumbest things ever lyrically. Fifteen minutes of "Heaven and Hell" is too much, and "Lady Evil" is still the goofiest disco-metal song ever written, but otherwise the music is fine. There are also two new songs, and they have decent enough riffs, though "The Devil Cried" ends up culminating in an obligatory five minute drum solo (I reiterate: every metal drum solo is basically the same).

On the plus side, Geezer and Tony sound almost as monstrous here as on Reunion, and that's a compliment. The guitar sound is crushingly heavy, and Tony's soloing is extremely effective (watching him in concert I realized what a minimalist he is overall). On the downside, well, it's basically a compilation, and it's not necessary in any way that would make me pull this out instead of Live Evil. I don't regret buying this, not at all, but I'm glad I got it pretty cheap.

The album's main drawback for me, as usual, is the lyrics. They're every bit as obsessed with death, hell and the occult (in that good old hyper-earnest Dio way) as they've ever been, and then some, and they still sound completely ridiculous. Titles like "Atom and Evil" (which sounds too much to me like a line from Batman and Robin), "Eating the Cannibals," "Follow the Tears" and "Breaking into Heaven" filled me with a lot of trepidation going in, even as I tried to remind myself, "It's ok, John, you ended up liking Children of the Sea just fine, and that had the 'Demon Dance' line." I know there's no way to get around this kind of lyrical approach from Dio, and I'm glad that the fantasy-metal Dungeons and Dragons aspects are gone, but just because I expected it going in doesn't mean that I have to feel happy about it.

But man, lyrics aside, these songs are quite good. It's a very consistent collection, too: nothing will go down as an all-time Sabbath classic, but nothing will go down as a dud, either. My favorite is probably "Fear," which matches the strong riff with a simple-but-strong hook in the chorus ("we wear the mark, FEEEAAR"), but several others are close behind. Without naming every track, I'd say the other standouts are "Bible Black" (which has a nice acoustic-based introduction, and which could have been made into an awful track with Tony Martin but which sounds fine here), "Rock and Roll Angel" (which features a decent ascending lick as a counter to yet another good set of riffs underpinning the bulk of the song), "Follow the Tears" (which mixes things up by including a spooky organ under the riffs) and the closing "Breaking into Heaven" (full of pounding majesty that's nowhere near as ridiculous as it should be). The others are good, too, full of nice riffs (I really can't stress enough how nice it is to hear consistently good riffs coming from Iommi's guitar) and nice vocal melodies.

So ok, this album isn't amazing, and there isn't any reason to believe that it will have any significant effect on the non-metalhead social consciousness. It certainly won't convert anybody who's not already a Sabbath fan, and many Sabbath fans will probably think I'm nuts for rating this higher than Vol. 4. And yet, aside from the distractingly annoying lyrics, this album has a solid level of baseline competency, and it consistently rises above it without having many plunges below, and that's enough to make me like it. Any Sabbath fan that's not slavishly devoted to the Ozzy era should consider picking this up.

Then again, if Ozzy and Tony and Geezer (Bill Ward didn't contribute for various reasons) really felt the strong need to make another Black Sabbath album together, this approach was probably the best of the realistic options. Ozzy and Tony had each had ample opportunity to try different approaches since parting ways, and I think it would be very generous to say that the results for each had been "mixed." Making a deliberate stab at imitating their style from 40 years previous may be artistically disappointing in that it would limit the ceiling of what this project could deliver, but it would also significantly limit the floor, and given that this approach also represented the chance to make a truckload of money, I'm perfectly ok with them taking this route. At the very least, Tony lived up to his part by writing plenty of great riffs, which he hadn't always done since Ozzy left, and it's nice again to have so many parts with Tony clearly in one channel and Geezer in the other.

The oddest feature of the album is just how long some of the tracks last; the album takes up 53 minutes in a mere 8 tracks. It's as if, among all of the other features the band decided to pull in from its classic period, the band decided they really needed to include "epics" along the lines of the longer tracks from Vol. 4 or Sabotage, and there isn't always a lot of justification for this. "God is Dead," for instance, lasts a whopping 9 minutes, but however good some of the riffs might be, I feel like this could have been easily reduced down to 5. "Age of Reason" has a killer riff of its own, but it's not enough to justify its 7-minute length either. There are long tracks that more-or-less deserve their full running times, though. The opening "The End of the Beginning" starts off as a hilariously blatant rip-off of "Black Sabbath" (both in the riff and in the nervous drumming), but it quickly spins off into a completely different (and kinda awesome) riff before growing into a guitar-frenzied passage that occasionally sounds like "Looking for Today" but only a little bit. "Damaged Soul" is a full-fledged 8-minute slow metal blues, with Ozzy playing some decent harmonica, and given that the band really hadn't done anything bluesy after the debut, I'm very happy to hear them go back in this direction for one track. The closing "Dear Father" also stands out with crushing primary and secondary riffs (there's a riff starting around the 3:00 mark that kicks a tremendous amount of ass, and there's a faster one after it that drives the song to its end), and it's kinda funny how the album closes with the same rainfall/chime sample that started off the debut album.

The other three tracks are a "Planet Caravan" imitation ("Zeitgeist") that isn't as great as the original but still kinda pretty, and a pair of five-minute decent riff-based heavy rockers ("Loner," "Live Forever") that could have blended right into the band's classic period (with different production, obviously). All told, this mix of decent-to-good tracks, hurt some by the excessive loudness and the blatant retreading, would earn a grade of 8, but it turns out that the version I have has four bonus tracks, and they're really good. My favorite of the lot, and my favorite of all of the tracks from this album, is "Methademic," which grows from a quiet acoustic introduction into a speedy thrash-y rocker with lots of guitar texture in the verses and a killer riff in the breaks, with the best vocal melody of the album by a long shot. "Peace of Mind" is built around a riff where the guitar drops out at the end to highlight the bass (before speeding up in the second half), and if Vol. 4 had this song instead of, say, "Cornucopia" or "Snowblind," I'd think more highly of that album.

"Pariah" is a little weaker, but it has its own share of good ideas (and it has more contrast in the sound than a lot of the material from the main album does), such as the riff that plays when Ozzy sings the hilarious Sabbath-y chorus of "I'm your pariah, for your desire, ain't no Messiah, just your pariah." And finally, "Naïveté in Black" is not an original song title for the band, but the song is nothing like its predecessor, reminding me more of something like "Neon Knights" than of an Ozzy-era track, and the blending of past styles works well here. I guess what fascinates me most about these four tracks, and consequently helps me like them so much, is that they strike me as tracks where the band backed off from its deliberate attempts to sound like its classic self, but in the process managed to capture the spirit and quality of its classic self far better than elsewhere; after all, at the time they were making those albums, Black Sabbath didn't yet know what the classic Black Sabbath sound was, and they were just making music the best that they could. The decision to relegate these tracks to bonus tracks that are only available in some editions baffles me.

If you like classic Black Sabbath, you'll probably like this album, but it's also unlikely that you'll regard it as important as the best albums from that era after you've listened to this three times. Still, I do rate it the main album as the equal of Vol. 4, and the version with the four bonus tracks slightly higher; given that my initial reaction upon hearing of an impending new Black Sabbath album was to brace myself that I'd give a 5, this outcome makes me very happy. It's a little unjust to live in a world where this got tons of press while the 2013 Deep Purple album Now What?! was ignored, but them's the breaks I suppose.