Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know

Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know - 2009

THe opening track, "Atom and Evil" (ugh, are these guys 15?) has the pace of a funeral processional. Almost as if the band is trying to instill depression. It's not fun.
Heaven and Hell are the holy/unholy marriage of Dio and Sabbath. 2 parts Dio (Ronnie and drummer Appice), 2 parts Sab (Iommi, Butler). I'm not sure how this even came to be, but I had to include it, even though it meant I would have to listen to Dio's overblown vocal theatrics and uninspired dungeons and dragons lyrics. I really wish it had opened with the big riffs of "Fear" a much more doomtastic track.
After that, it's one same sounding lurching dark metal track after another.
Dio died before they could record another one. I'm not happy he died. But...
I'm not a fan of H&H.

Grade: C-
ASide:
BlindSide: Fear

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Forbidden

Black Sabbath - Forbidden - 1995

I worked with Ice T once. I was a guest on his show "Players". We had a nice chat. Seems like a nice guy.

And he's featured on the bridge of easily the most annoying Sabbath song ever, "The Illusion of Power". Uninspired. Insipid. Bored.
But, why is he on here? Rappers on Metal albums? Man, the 90s sucked.
Song after song this record is filled with 1000 megawatt suckage. "Shaking Off the Chains" doesn't even sound like a Sabbath song. Hell, it sounds like some 4th rate metal band you'd hear on Rotten Records in the 90s. Poorly mixed, poorly mastered, poorly written, just unlistenable tripe. In fact, that's an insult to Acid Bath and D.R.I. This is much much worse.
The worst thing on this record isn't the band or the music, although that's pretty awful. No. it's Tony Martin's insipid lyrics and his below par warbling. he ruins an already terrible record.
And then, just when you've gotten used to just how bad this monstrosity is, the band tries to go radio friendly, soaring solos with "Sick and Tired" which not only sucks, but describes how I feel by the time it shows up.
Iommi gave it up after this. Sabbath was done. And, truly, none too soon.

Grade: D-
ASide:
BlindSide:
DownSide: The Illusion of Power, Get a Grip, Shaking off the Chains, Rusty Angels

Review Number 424

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Cross Purposes

Black Sabbath - Cross Purposes - 1994

So, Sabbath decides to open for Ozzy, who is now an international bat biting superstar. Dio thinks this is beneath the band and he up and quits.
What does Iommi do? He brings back his co-hort in the band's best recent material, Tony Martin.
The result?
Another dark metal entry to the band's catalog. It's very riff heavy and I get the feeling that Iommi just sits in a room spitting out licks but the well is running dry....

Cross Purposes is no great shakes. If you want that go to Eternal Idol or Headless Cross. But, if you want amore of that that isn't as good but isn't awful, this'll do fine.

Grade: C+
ASide: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
BlindSide: Cross of Thorns, Cardinal Sin
DownSide: Dying for Love

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer

Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer - 1992

Dammit. Dio.

You know, if right after Mob Rules Sabbath had put out another album with the same lineup I would probably have been excited.
That was before I had to slog through 38 solo albums by the metalelf.
So, now we're back to that lineup. And coming off the heels of two great records and one interesting quasi-concept one, what do we get?
Well, it's 1992, so it's time for someone to complain about computers, right? "Computer God", check. And there's social consciousness as well. On TV Crimes the band takes out televangelists. There's something odd to me about that. After all these guys were like a cultish religion unto themselves. They started off trafficking in miring themselves in pagan
ideology and iconography. And know they are condemning it. It feels...wrong.
Dio doesn't sing about D&D imagery but what he's choosing, the above concepts and such shitty lyrics like the ones on "Letters From Earth" make me so angry. This was a band that, for 2.5 albums were really on the cutting edge. They deserved their resurgence. They deserved their mantle of Godfathers of Metal.
Then Dio comes in and shits all over everything. A great riff like "Master of Insanity"'s is marred by not only Dio's self-indulgence but also his crappo lyrics and complete dearth of melody. On the other hand, "Time Machine" is a catchy metal number, and "After All (The Dead)" is an ear splitting treat. But, beyond that, this one just screams for a band to put away their toys and hang it up.

Grade: D
ASide:
BlindSide: After All (The Dead)
DownSide: TV Crimes, Master of Insanity, Buried Alive

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Tyr

Black Sabbath - Tyr - 1990

Nothing you have heard from Black Sabbath is really gonna prepare you for Tyr. What seems to be a concept album about Norse mythology is much more than that. The band denies any conceptualizing or thread but it seems so obvious. So what is it? Some of the heaviest and most complex production in the history of the band pervades this record. It's epic.
Shunting the production values of the previous decade with abandon on the previous two records, Iommi, Nichols, Martin and Cozy Powell raise the stakes with overlays, overdubs, thick walls of gothic ambience, Tyr is meant to be played loud. Excuse me, LOUD.
One moment the record is almost elegiac, the next it's a pummeling driver that would make Motorhead proud. Especially on a song like "The Law Maker".
The record gets a little flabby toward the middle but, somehow, never falls prey to the indulgences of, say, Kiss's The Elder or the obnoxious self importance of Judas Priest's Nostradamus.
Not my favorite Sabbath album, but by no means an embarrassment. Of course, if you are expecting Headless Cross or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath or Paranoid or even The Eternal Idol or Sabotage, it's not that. No way.

Grade: B+
ASide: Anno Mundi, Valhalla
BlindSide: The law Maker
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Headless Cross

Black Sabbath - Headless Cross - 1989

Building on the success of the surprise hit, The Eternal Idol, Iommi and Martin (and Brian May on a guest solo on "When Death Calls"!!!) come back harder, stronger and even more impressively on Headless Cross.
It's as though they decided not to try to reinvent themselves any more than they had to. THey didn't really need to do any "re" invention since they created the black metal goth sound 20 years earlier. They just lost their way a bit. Cocaine, success, ego and pride will do that to you.
This is as good as The Eternal Idol, in fact, in many ways, its more cohesive and a very worthy successor to Heaven and Hell. I can do without the "radio-friendly" attempt on "Call of the Wild: but that's picking nits.
Excellent.

Grade: A
ASide: When Death Comes, Headless Cross
BlindSide: Devil and Daughter, Nightwing
DownSide: Call of the Wild

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - The Eternal Idol

Black Sabbath - The Eternal Idol - 1987

I do not like this new vocalist. Tony Martin sounds like a cross between Rob Halford and David Coverdale, incorporating the worst of both singers. Maybe he'll grow on me. I dunno.
The opening track, The Shining is certainly the most epic the band has sounded in ages. But, let's be real, it's just Tony Iommi and Geoff Nichols at this point. Sabbath is a brand and the brand must soldier on. The album is darker than anything Iommi has been able to put out in ages. I can't recall when the songs sounded this...full of foreboding. "Ancient Warrior" is easily the most ominous Sabbath has sounded since...Heaven and Hell? But for some reason it calls to mind the sound of the band around Sabotage for me. Weird, since Martin has a more Dio-esque voice.
Whatever mojo Iommi lost has certainly returned. He's finding riffs and licks that I didn't think were in him anymore. "Hard Life to Love" is one of the most enigmatic and sexy riffs I've heard from him. The rest of the band does a superb job of backing him up, even the vocals, but let's face it, the lead guitar's the star. It's relentless, this spin. Murderous riffs. Solid production. A real return to form.
Good to have you back, Sab.

Grade: A
ASide: The Shining, Eternal Idol
BlindSide: Ancient Warrior, Hard Life to Love, Born to Lose

If I am counting correctly, this is review number 413 in the entire Listening Post/Reflecting Pool/DoubleShot series.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Seventh Star (featuring Tony Iommi)

Black Sabbath - Seventh Star - 1986

Okay, so this isn't really a Black Sabbath album. It IS, but it isn't. It was meant to be Tony Iommi's solo record. Look at that cover. Black Sabbath FEATURING Tony Iommi?
What? Iommi INVENTED Black Sabbath. He was one of the four originals and has been in the band for almost 20 years at this point. Hmmm...jealous, Tony? Ozzy's a superstar and you're "part of a band"?
From the outset Seventh Star's "In for the Kill" has that singular 80s metal sound. Chukka-chukka guitars, anthemic soaring vocals, frenzied lead guitars. And generic as all get out.
The demonic pallbearer sound does appear immediately following on "No Stranger to Love" but, really? This is the subject matter you want to explore, Tony? I think you're trying to sell records and it's all coming across as pandering. And the straight up blues of "Heart Like A Wheel" doesn't even remind one of Sabbath so only adds to the confusion. Plus that's been done soooo soooo much better by others that it just left me wanting.
Songs like "Turn to Stone" start out promising and, just when you think, yeah, I can get in to this, Eric Singer is killing on the drums, Iommi is in rare form...Glenn Hughes's Coverdale-wannabe vocals come in, all over produced and doubled and tinny and, it all turns everything to shit. Oh, and Glenn used to be in Deep Purple, too. Natch!
All of this said, it's really hard to judge this record in context. Like I said up top, this wasn't a BS record. They had broken up after the last disastrous album. So given that, if Deep Purple represent the far left of the dial as safe and progressive and Ozzy & Dio are turned tight to the right fighting for the goth-dragon-fighter D&D crowd, this lands squarely in the middle. Not as sexy as Whitesnake. Not as boring as Rainbow.

Grade: D+
ASIde: In for the Kill, Seventh Star
BlindSide: Turn to Stone
DownSide: No Stranger to Love, Danger Zone (Don't worry, Loggins fans...)

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Born Again

Black Sabbath - Born Again - 1983

Well, here we are. Another Purple Sabbath crossover. Ex-Deep Purple lead singer Ian Gillan joined Black Sabbath for their most reviled album of their career.
First off, from the beginning it sounds NOTHING like a Sabbath record. "Trashed", the lead off song is some power speed metal with soaring vocals and a razor bald of a guitar solo. The tinniness of the production is so off putting that the entire record is impossible to penetrate (forget that cover, which should turn any human off), the marriage of Gillan and Sabbath is just a mess.
This, by the way, is the album that spawned the tour that begat the amazing "Stonehenge" segment of Spinal Tap. The story goes that the set Sabbath designed was too big to get into any arena. So, Tap went in the other direction, hilariously. The instrumental "Stonehenge" on this record is a trifle, a placeholder that leads into the shrieking caterwauling of "Disturbing the Priest", a song I can only describe as Metal as imagined by The Residents. Just awful.
On the other hand "Zero the Hero" is a dark epic of political apathy. Gillan's voice sounds like Vince Neil in a song that almost rescues the first side. And Side two opens with a screed against ex-Sabbath manager's daughter and future Ozzy wife and tv reality star, Sharon Arden (Osbourne) and, save the trebly mastering, it's a powerhouse of chukka-metal. The overly earnest slodge that is the title track calls to mind some z-rated horror film. Not quite Troll 2 but maybe Halloween 6. It wants so badly to be grandiose and epic. It fails on both counts. "Hot Line" while a pretty straight forward metal experience is perhaps the only song on the album to be correctly mixed.

If everybody involved with this had been paying attention to the mixing and mastering, I bet this record would be less reviled today. (well, it needs a new cover). As it is, it has to lose a few points for the terrible execution in post. Too bad. Everybody seems to be trying.

Grade: D+
ASide: Trashed, Digital Bitch
BlindSide: Zero the Hero (suck it, Allmusic, I dig this song)
DownSide: Disturbing the Priest, Born Again, Keep It Warm

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman – 1981

Blizzard of Ozz part 2. this one actually follows the same pattern laid down by Blizzard. Great opener “Over the Mountain”, blistering follow-up “Flying High Again”, power ballad “You Can't Kill Rock and Roll”. And so on. Instead of “Mr. Crowley”, the dark side two opener is “Little Dolls”, Just as ominous a track with a little toe in Ozzy's psychedelic roots. Really little.
By now the guys have settled down from the launchpad of “we'll show you how great we are” to the perch of “we've won, we are the gods of metal”. Because of that, there are few surprises. Like we need surprises when you've got Randy Rhodes. Let him loose to do his stuff. He's not gonna be around forever, you know...
I'm usually not a huge fan of Power Metal Ballads, but I have a soft spot for “Tonight”. It evokes lonely Saturday night cruising in the 80s. Hoping for something to happen. Driving your beater or your dad's big boat of a Chrysler down main street while your best friend makes out with the hotter girl in the back seat. Jamming the brakes every once in a while out of jealousy. Ending up in the same place you started. Which really isn't so bad. Cuz one day you'll leave that town. You'll be something.

You don't need Diary of a Madman if you already own Blizzard of Ozz. But it won't hurt to have it or hear it.

Grade: A-
Aside: Over the Mountain, Flying High Again
BlindSide: Little Dolls, Tonight, S.A.T.O.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Mob Rules

Black Sabbath – Mob Rules – 1981

I don't love Mob Rules the way I do Heaven and Hell but it's still terrific. It's as though Iommi was challenging himself in the contest of Sabbath vs Ozzy because he's in terrific form and Butler raises the stakes over the less than perfect Daisley on Ozzy's album.
Somehow Dio is kept in check, mystically speaking. Perhaps that's why he would leave after this record.
There are no surprises, just solid playing, strong writing, and exciting interplay between the band. Perhaps taking a cue from the classical offerings of Rhodes and recalling the best experimentation of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band comes up with their own neo-classical influenced epic, “The Sign of the Southern Cross” which never devolves into parody, though it easily could have, even with that trippy coda “E5150” which follows.
A song like “Slipping Away” shows the band embracing a more accessible sound while not losing their hard core sludge roots.
All in all, Mob Rules is a worthy follow up to Heaven and Hell.

Grade: A
Aside: Mob Rules, Turn up the Night
BlindSide: The Sign of the Southern Cross,
DownSide: Voodoo

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard of Ozz – 1980

“Daddy, I want music, not talk!” my four year old daughter shouted to me as we were on a run to the pharmacy last night.
“You got it!” I said and fired up Blizzard of Ozz, which was next on the Listening Post list anyway.
“Daddy! Wanna see my leg kick dance?!?”
I looked back and saw Zoe kicking and jerking her feet to the music.
“You like this music, Zig Zag?” my most often used nickname for her.
“Yeah!”.

Until “Goodbye To Romance”, that is. She doesn't dig the ballads.

When I was 15 I had a job in the greasy spoon in the tourist of Bar Harbor. I mixed the cole slaw and, eventually, I was graduated to fish chowder.
That's when I met Pete. My best friend for a couple years until we lost touch in the early 90s, Pete was a lover of all things metal. Pantera, Van Halen and Ozzy. It was he who convinced me to go to the Bangor State Fair to see Ozzy in concert. He convinced me to bring the album cover with me and wave it, which was a burden, actually.
Because of Peter Daher I got to the concert so early that I was 3 people from the stage. Because of him I saw a new band that really caught fire with both of us, a little band called Def Leppard. Because of him Randy Rhodes looked me right in the eye and smiled at me through a solo.
Thanks, Pete.

Blizzard of Ozz is a perfect record. Even if I hadn't had those experiences I would love this record. Watching my daughter react to it the way she did 30 years later proves that for me. I think a lot of that has to do with healthy competition and need to prove himself after leaving Sabbath.
Of course, without Randy Rhodes I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be writing any of that.
Rhodes brought a magical combination of adoration for the idiom of metal, a respect for classical music, a slavish disciples talent (my god, how many fingers did that man even have? 15?) and a sense of a little bit of radio friendly ear candy.
All of this together brings us classics like “Crazy Train”, “Mr. Crowley” “I Don't Know” AND acoustic gems like “Dee” which bleeds into the righteous “Suicide Solution”. There's room for that power ballad because there's so much of everything else going on.

I find it interesting that both Ozzy and Sabbath would choose to use sacrilegious imagery on their covers. From Ozzy's cross-as-weapon to Sabbath's smoking angels (a theme copied by Van Halen just a couple years later). Dead Kennedys would incorporate the same anti-religious themes on their In God we Trust, inc the next year. No doubt this was all a reaction to the Moral Majority's rise in America.
It all fits the music, by the way.
But I digress.
In short:
I love this record.

Grade: A+
Aside: I Don't Know, Crazy Train, Suicide Solution, Mr. Crowley
BlindSide: Dee, Revelation (Mother Earth), Steal Away (The Night)
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell

I thought Black Sabbath was over. We all did. Ozzy left or was kicked out. He had his own thing, which I adored. Black Sabbath was supposed to go in to that good night and disappear. The architects of metal were bloated and sad and devoid of ingenuity.
How wrong were we?
In 1980, along with Ozzy's solo record and AC/DC's seminal work "Back in Black", Sabbath hired former Rainbow lead singer (See how it all comes together?) Ronnie James Dio and put out Heaven and Hell.

It's easily their best work in ages. It ranks up there with Paranoid. It's great.

The driving, pounding turbo engine of "Neon Nights", the slog-metal of "Children of the Sea"and the remarkably ominous title track raise this record to a place I had long consigned to either history or a new generation of metal-heads.
Heaven and Hell is a lean piece of plastic. A great example is "Die Young" which is like a car crash where the driver, bleeding, head smashed against the steering wheel, finds his way out of the car and straggles out of the car, his shoulder dislocated, his arm hanging like a duck in the window of a chinese restaurant, gets his bearings, and races away from the scene to parts unknown.
It's exceptional. And Iommi transforms himself into something elegant and stratospheric. Perhaps he's influenced by the likes of Eddie Van Halen and the new guitar gods. As it should be, those guitar heroes are all students of his. It's fitting that he become the student once more.

H&H isn't a "return to form". We wouldn't want that. The metal of the early factory town days was infused with psychedelia, LSD and Boris Karloff movies. This is the 80s. Things move a lot faster. This is cocaine metal. Metallica is nipping at the heels and this album is a deep breath by the grandparents who refuse to go gently.

Grade: A+
ASIde: Neon Nights, Children of the Sea, Heaven and Hell
BlindSide: Wishing Well, Die Young

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Never Say Die

Um.....What?

Black Sabbath - Never Say Die! - 1978

Talk about sounding absolutely nothing like yourself.
Never Say Die!, the last Sabbath record with Ozzy is one of the most confusing records I've ever head. Let alone from Sabbath. It's as though, at times, a power pop group decided to make a metal record. Then at other times it's crazily disjointed like the mess of "Junior's Eyes". At other times, it reminds me of some weird Beatles meets Bay City Rollers mess (A Hard Rock).
I don't know what to make of this. It's as though I got dropped off in an alternate universe and was told that metal was something that it really wasn't.
Weird. You should hear it. Or maybe not. It's not worth looking for. I'm putting this record in the closet and saying, "Never Again".

And with that, the Black Sabbath that led the charge and changed the world of music as we would know it, like their Purple counterparts, said farewell. The lineup that meant so much was gone. This record is a fitting explanation as to why.

Grade: D
ASide: Never Say Die!
DownSide: Air Dance, Junior's Eyes, Breakout (Saxophone? WTF?)

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy - 1976

That chukka-chukka guitar! The soaring Ozzy vocals! It can only be one thing: It's the Blizzard of---what? Oh, this is still Sabbath? But why does it---? Ok. I'll stop asking. This first song really sounds like, hey, waitaminnit..electric synth? What? And why does Ozzy sound like he's fighting with Iommi for melody? What the fuck is this? They get close to what we've come to love on "You Won't Change Me" but it's half-hearted at best. This is a band that has run out of ideas and are bored with themselves and their music.
The album has some high points, relatively speaking. "It's Alright" is a neat little anthem and "Dirty Women" takes the rock as symphonic opera to a new place. But all told, Technical Ecstasy is neither technically interesting nor ecstatic about anything.
It's Technical Dullness.

Grade: D
ASide: It's Alright
BlindSide: Dirty Women

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Black Sabbath - Sabotage - 1975

After two years off, primarily touring for Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, their most well reviewed album to date, and partying apparently, Sabbath returns with the album you never hear about.
Listening to it for the first time in ages I sort of understand why. If SBS was experimental in its soundcraft and attempts at wider appeal, Sabotage takes the same progressive stance but instead of trying to appeal to a wider audience, it sort of doubles down on the sludge.
The result is a terrifically appealing Sabbath record but only slightly more accessible than Vol. 4. With the stench of mid-70s rock all over it, Sabotage (which suffers from one of the worst covers in the band's history) has some enormously ambitious moments. The mega-epic "Megalomania" is a triumph of styles, tempos and textures. And some terrific vocals by Ozzy on the closer, "The Writ". While the first track, "Hole in the Sky" and the side two opener, "The Thrill of it All" are both genuinely tasty metal tracks, I can't help but feel as though there's nothing to hang on to. The single, "Am I Going Insane" is a great song and it even has one foot nestled nicely in late 60s structure and style. After 6 records, it's nice to know that the lads haven't completely eschewed their beginnings.

After listening to Sabotage I can't imagine reaching for it as the go-to Sabbath record. It's not even in 4th position.
It's good, but it's just not...fantastic. If you have Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, nothing will really move or surprise you here.

Grade: B+
ASide: The Thrill of it All, Am I Going Insane
BlindSide: Supertzar, Megalomania, The Writ

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - 1973

SBS opens with a demonstrative salvo. The title track, with it's enormous verses and the quiet counter choruses, says we're a long way from that industrial town. The boys are holding on to the mantle of metal god and refusing to let it go. What we're left with is almost a manifesto.
Just what is "Fluff"? Can you imagine being a die hard Sabbathhead and hearing that for the first time? I actually can because Randy Rhodes did a lot of that stuff for Ozzy years later and what a teenage music fan like me did was get validation out of. "It's like classical music! See! They can really play, Mom!" This is the stuff that Tenacious D would mock 25 years later. Hell, almost 30. And, sure it's indulgent and pretentious, but that's what ROCK is supposed to be, dammit.
And, oh, "Sabbra Cadabra". What rifftastic treat is that, huh? Is that Yes's Rick Wakeman ripping it up on Keys? Hell, yes, it is.
Then again: Ring ring...Hello, Sabbath? My name is Gary Numan. I really like what you've done on that track, "Who Are You". Would you mind if I totally appropriate that sound, never give you credit and try to make an entire living based on it? No? Great, thanks."
But I kind of like that track. It's very Jon Carpenter. Very Dark Star.
There's no way pre-SBS Sabbath would have been able to record something as grandiose and assured as "Looking for Today". A song as much fun to listen to as it must be to play, it has no relationship to "Iron Man" or "Paranoid" or "War Pig". But that's fine, in fact, it's more than fine. It's important. It separates this more mature band from its raw youth and elevates the album to something unexpected and special. And "Spiral Architect" fits that bill perfectly. It couldn't exist on the previous four albums, not like this. This is great.

Grade: A+
ASide: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabbra Cadabra
BlindSide: A National Acrobat, Fluff, Looking for Today, Spiral Architect

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Vol.4

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 - 1972

The world of dark metal gets a little sludgier in 1972. You can almost feel the band shedding off it's working class England stink and sliding through a thick morass of L.A. debauchery. These are gods among men, these musicians. In 1972, before glam would become the next big thing, before punk, before stadium prog, there was Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, etc.
Vol.4 is a bit more experimental than the previous three albums and, you know, thank god. "Wheels of Confusion", a multi-part opener, sort of challenges the listener to go on this journey with the band. If you were expecting "Iron Man" you would get that plus a healthy dose of psychedelia.
We get back to the riffage right afterward with "Tomorrow's Dream", it's the Sabbath we've come to count on and it's immediately followed by the completely unexpected piano ballad "Changes". Stretching their wings the band pretty much invents the metal power ballad. And it's awesome.
And what can you really say about powerhouses like "Supernaut" and "Snowblind" (& Under the Sun) that haven't already been said.
It all gets a little tired toward the end. Imagine how bloated this record would sound if it was recorded 15 years later in the era of the 70 minute cd? Yikes.

Vol. 4 is a metal classic and deserves to be.

Grade: A
ASide: Changes, Supernaut, Snowblind
BlindSide: Wheels of Confusion, St. Vitus Dance (I include it here cuz I never remember that it's on this record and I love that riff)

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality - 1971

Is Master of Reality really just Paranoid Part 2? Sure. Why mess with success? In fact, what's more interesting to me is that Iommi had hurt his hand before recording this record so he just tuned his guitar down a notch and played everything that way. Butler followed suit and the result was a record even more sludgier, murkier and denser than the others. And sort of brilliant all at the same time.
There are tracks like the brief "Embryo" and "Orchid" and "Solitude" that are actually quite beautiful, while others, like "Children of the Grave" are downright terrifying. And Iommi's shredding is nothing short of pre-Randy Rhode-ian genius. One listen to "Lord of this World" and just about everything Josh Homme's been about for the past 10 years makes sense. And he owes Sabbath some royalty checks.
However, I should say that, at this point the Sabbath tricks and licks are getting tired. Maybe it's just me. Maybe 3 albums in a row is overkill, but that's the whole point of the LPs.
For now, they, um, what do the kids say, rule? Sure.
MoR is as good as the last.

Grade: A
ASide: Sweet Leaf
BlindSide: Children of the Grave, Orchid, Solitude

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Black Sabbath - Paranoid - 1970

Metal. Heavy Metal. Just what is it?
I could go on some kind of descriptive bender. I could vomit adjectives till you and I are sick of reading them and writing them.
Or.
You could just pick up Paranoid and listen to the seven minute opening opus, "War Pigs" to get exactly what HEAVY METAL is.
It's a kind of horror show in minor keys. It's the voice of the people, if the people are sequestered in a dungeon and have no ability to speak for themselves. It's a wail and cry. It's a brick wrapped in a wet towel soaked in gin and pummeled into your head.
Listen that epic build toward the end of "War Pigs". 15 years later that would be augmented by strings and keyboards and massive overproduction. Without it, it's just as powerful but even more stark and terrifying.
In the hands of Iommi, their "hit single", the title track, would be the very basis for everything The Ramones would do in just a few years.
And what can be said of "Iron Man"? If there was ever a song built around one great riff, it's that. It holds up 40 years later, so much so that it sounded fresh in the Robert Downey Jr movie just a few years ago.
The first time you listen to Paranoid you might feel a little let down toward the end. This is, I assure you, only because the first half of it has become part of the musical lexicon that you, like me, might feel like the rest is too familiar. Listen again. THen I think you'll get past the Spinal Tappiness of the record. (Man, in retrospect, they really ruined 70s metal.)

Grade: A
ASIde: War Pigs, Paranoid, iron Man
BlindSide: Fairies Wear Boots