CD Odyssey Disc 598: Black Sabbath

When you work Monday to Friday there’s a tendency to wake up Sunday morning feeling like the weekend is over, when really, you’ve still got a whole other day to fill with fun.

My Sunday is starting with writing this review, which is a fine way to greet Day Two of the weekend as far as I’m concerned. The Dice Gods have favoured Black Sabbath lately, which is fine by me as well.

So here we go, and when I’m done I’ll get to work on the laundry – because as relaxing and enjoyable as I plan for my Sunday to be, greeting the work week with no clean underwear is never a good idea.

Disc 598 is….Sabotage

Artist: Black Sabbath

Year of Release: 1975

What’s up with the Cover? The boys from the band demonstrate their magic powers.  Behold! We can have our reflections look the same direction as us.  Don’t be afraid, dear readers, it is all done with (you guessed it) mirrors.

Instead of a giant mirror, the band should have considered spending their photo shoot money on a new wardrobe.  With the exception of Ozzie’s resplendent gown and platform shoes, the other guys look ridiculous.  Geezer Butler is dressed (and posed) like a grandmother living in a care home, Tony Iommi looks like a trucker who dreams of working in porn and as for Bill Ward, no leather jacket can make up for wearing your pajama bottoms in public. You are the founding fathers of heavy metal, gentlemen, have some pride.

How I Came To Know It: This was just me drilling through early Sabbath albums, I think in this case on the recommendation of my buddy Spence.

How It Stacks Up:  As just noted when I reviewed “Dehumanizer” at Disc 595, I have eleven Sabbath albums, ten studio and one live.  Of the ten, “Sabotage” is on the weaker side of the ledger, slightly better than “Dehumanizer” but still only good enough for eighth spot.

And although I still have one Black Sabbath album remaining to review, it is a live album and so can’t really stack up against the studio records.  Given that, this is as good a time as any for the full recap on how they each rank.

1. Volume 4: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 6)
2. Paranoid: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 194)
3. Self-Titled: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 105)
4. Heaven and Hell: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 565)
5. Master of Reality: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 270)
6. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 300)
7. The Mob Rules: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 157)
8. Sabotage: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
9. Dehumanizer: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 595)
10. Born Again: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 434)

As you can see by the rankings, I really like Black Sabbath. OK, on to “Sabotage”:

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4.

Sabbath fans viewing the album list above will see it is missing two albums from the Ozzie Osbourne era, “Technical Ecstasy” and “Never Say Die.”  I’ve heard both those albums and while they have their moments, I like to think of “Sabotage” as the last great Sabbath record of the Ozzie era. In my record collection, it is anyway.

Apparently fractures in the band were starting to form during the recording of “Sabotage” but you’d never know by listening to it. The band is still as tight as ever, and Tony Iommi demonstrates time and again that he is the master of writing a killer metal riff. Iommi’s guitar riffs seem so simple they make you wonder how come no one else had done it already, but Sabbath’s charm has always been to take fairly basic song constructions and fill them with doom and glory that lades them with a dread import.

Ozzie’s lyrics on “Sabotage” felt to me like a throw-back to 1971’s “Master of Reality”; a mix of moralizing and Lovecraft-like eldritch evil. Listening to “Hole in the Sky,” I had a hard time telling if Ozzie was talking about an ancient primordial god about to devour the world, or just the Christian Rapture. I suspect that for Ozzie the concepts are interchangeable. One thing that is certain is that under all of his drug-addled vision questing, Ozzie remains a moral and thoughtful man.  “Hole in the Sky” ends with this accusatory stanza:

“I’ve watched the Gods of War enjoying their feast

I’ve seen the western world go down in the east

The food of love became the greed of our time

No now we’re living on the profits of crime.”

The album has a lot of different musical influences lurking amid its proto-metal riffs. On “Don’t Start (Too Late)” Iommi does a little guitar instrumental in a flamenco style which is pretty enough, but doesn’t hold up to similar songs on earlier records, such as “Fluff” off of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.”  A second instrumental, “Supertzar” adds in a full classical chorus to good effect, although I kept wanting the song to develop into something more than it does.

The albums centerpiece is “Megalomania,” which is a ten minute song that has you wishing it were fifteen.

Like so many Sabbath classics, “Megalomania” is not content to have just one amazing riff, but instead varies its tempo and structure back and forth very much like classical music does. Each section is a reflection of its counterpart, providing the light and shadow a long song needs to hold your attention as it unfolds. The song tells the tale of a man slowly but inexorably losing himself to dark powers that subtly poison his soul with his own sense of self-importance. It is a timely song for a band at the height of their powers, and about to descend into a period of confusion and conflict.

“Sabotage” is not a Sabbath album that is the first off of someone’s tongue when discussing their great records.  However, that is more a function of how exceptional the band’s catalogue is, and not an indictment of the record itself. Most bands could only dream of having an album as good as this one, despite it being only eighth on my list.

Best tracks: Hole in the Sky, Megalomania, Thrill of it All