Black Sabbath – 1969 Demo

A real strange bootleg:

Black Sabbath were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne.

They are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal music. The band helped define the genre with their first three albums Black Sabbath, Paranoid (both 1970) and Master of Reality (1971).

Following Osbourne’s departure in 1979, the band underwent multiple line-up changes, with Iommi being the only constant member throughout their history.

After previous iterations of the group – the Polka Tulk Blues Band, and Earth – the band settled on the name Black Sabbath in 1969. (wikipedia)

And here is the story of this bootleg:

Oh yes … a real strange bootleg … but very nesseary for of every hard core Black Sabbath collector !

Personnel:
Terry “Geezer” Butler (bass)
Tony Iommi (guitar)
John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums)
+
Norman Haines (keyboards on 01 + 02.)
Jim Simpson (trumpet on 03.)

Tracklist:
01.The Rebel (Haines) 2.46
02. When I Came Down (Haines) 1.59
03. Thomas James (unlnown) 8.29
04. Early Morning Blues (Traditional) 4.43

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Alternate front+backcover:
More from Black Sabbath in this blog:

The official website:

 

 

 

Black Sabbath – Headless Cross (1989)

Black Sabbath were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal music. The band helped define the genre with their first three albums Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master of Reality (1971).

Following Osbourne’s departure in 1979, the band underwent multiple line-up changes, with Iommi being the only constant member throughout their history.

Live at the Manufaktor, Schorndorf (near Stuttgart), Germany, 1969:

After previous iterations of the group – the Polka Tulk Blues Band and Earth – the band settled on the name Black Sabbath in 1969. They distinguished themselves through occult themes with horror-inspired lyrics and down-tuned guitars. Signing to Philips Records in November 1969, they released their first single, “Evil Woman”, in January 1970, and their debut album, Black Sabbath, was released the following month. Though it received a negative critical response, the album was a commercial success, leading to a follow-up record, Paranoid, later that year. The band’s popularity grew, and by 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, critics were starting to respond favourably. This album, along with its predecessor Vol. 4 (1972) and its successors Sabotage (1975), Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978), saw the band explore more experimental and progressive styles.

Osbourne’s excessive substance abuse led to his firing in 1979. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Sabbath recorded three albums with Dio, Heaven and Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981) and the live album Live Evil (1982), with the last two featuring drummer Vinny Appice replacing Ward. Following Dio and Appice’s departures, Iommi and Butler recorded Born Again (1983) with then-former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan and Ward returning on drums, while the latter was replaced by then-Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan on the subsequent tour. Black Sabbath split in 1984, with Iommi assembling a new version of the band the following year. For the next twelve years, the band endured many personnel changes that included vocalists Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin, as well as several drummers and bassists. In 1991, Iommi reunited with Butler, Dio and Appice to record Dehumanizer (1992), though Dio and Appice had both departed again by the end of 1992.

The original line-up reunited in 1997, releasing a live album, Reunion, in the following year, and touring occasionally until 2005, most of which saw Black Sabbath headlining Osbourne’s annual festival tour Ozzfest. The band went on hiatus in 2006 when the Mob Rules lineup reunited as Heaven & Hell, touring during the late 2000s and releasing its sole studio album, The Devil You Know, in 2009 before disbanding after Dio’s death in the following year. The original line-up of Black Sabbath reunited once again in 2011, though Ward departed prior to the recording of their final studio album and 19th overall, 13 (2013). During their farewell tour, Black Sabbath played their final concert in their home city of Birmingham on 4 February 2017. Occasional partial reunions have occured since, most recently when Osbourne and Iommi performed together at the closing ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Black Sabbath have sold over 70 million records worldwide as of 2013, making them one of the most commercially successful heavy metal bands. Black Sabbath, together with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, have been referred to as the “unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-seventies”.[6] They were ranked by MTV as the “Greatest Metal Band of All Time” and placed second on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock” list. Rolling Stone magazine ranked them number 85 on their “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” list. Black Sabbath were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. They have also won two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance, and in 2019 the band received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (wikipedia)

Headless Cross is the fourteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Released on 17 April 1989, it was the group’s second album to feature singer Tony Martin, the first to feature drummer Cozy Powell, and the only album with bassist Laurence Cottle.

According to Tony Iommi’s autobiography, Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, the band were dropped from Warner Bros. Records in 1988 after an eighteen-year deal and after Vertigo Records had also dropped them. He met Miles Copeland, who owned I.R.S. Records at the time. Copeland told him: “You know how to write albums, you know what people want. You do it and I’m fine with it.” This persuaded Iommi to sign to I.R.S.

Iommi asked British drummer Cozy Powell – who had played with Jeff Beck, Rainbow, MSG and Whitesnake, among others – if he wanted to join Sabbath. Iommi and Powell began writing songs at the former’s home, with Tony Martin joining for rehearsals. Iommi got a call from Gloria Butler, wife and manager of Geezer Butler, who said the bassist wanted to rejoin Sabbath. However, Butler instead joined Ozzy Osbourne’s No Rest for the Wicked tour lineup.[4] Iommi and Nicholls had originally thought to bring Ronnie James Dio back or again ask David Coverdale to join the band, but Powell convinced him to keep Martin on. Powell and Iommi produced the album themselves.

Due to Jo Burt’s exit early in the sessions, Laurence Cottle played bass as a session musician rather than an official member. He appeared in the video for the title track, but was not featured in promotional photos. For the tour, the lineup was completed by Whitesnake and Gary Moore bassist Neil Murray.

Conceptually, the lyrics have predominantly occult and Satanic elements; arguably the only time in the band’s career where an entire album is based on such ideas rather than select songs.

“When Death Calls” has a guitar solo by Queen guitarist Brian May.

Two songs had their titles changed due to Ozzy Osbourne releasing songs with the same titles on his album No Rest for the Wicked. “Call of the Wild” was originally titled “Hero”, and “Devil & Daughter” was originally titled “Devil’s Daughter”.

“Call of the Wild” and “Devil & Daughter” are also the only songs that do not end with a slow fade out with vocal ad libs by Tony Martin; while “Nightwing” does have a fade out, it does not feature any vocal ad libs. According to Martin, the vocals on “Nightwing” were the original guide vocals, because Iommi thought they sounded better than later recordings.

“‘Black Moon’ was written with Tony Iommi, Geoff Nicholls, Eric Singer and Dave Spitz,” noted Martin. “They were left with one track that had no voice on it, and Tony asked me if I could sing something on it. I wrote and sang the lyrics in one day! We never played it [live] because there are too many Sabbath favourites.”

According to the sleeve notes, the cover image was designed by Kevin Wimlett. The sleeve was designed by The Leisure Process at their offices in Little Portland Street London. The UK sleeve was in black-and-white, while the German release added colour. (wikipedia)

By the late ’80s everyone had pretty much given up on Black Sabbath…and why not? After all, guitarist Tony Iommi was the only remaining original member, and the band had seen an outrageous number of musicians — particularly lead singers — crash through its battered ranks since Ozzy Osbourne’s late-’70s sacking. So it was actually quite a shock to anyone still paying attention when no-name vocalist Tony Martin outperformed a string of higher-profile predecessors with his contributions to Sabbath’s unexpected 1987 return to form, The Eternal Idol, then pulled off the even more remarkable feat of being invited back for a second go-round via 1989’s equally satisfying Headless Cross.

Arguably the finest Black Sabbath album sans Ozzy or Dio, Headless Cross also featured one of Black Sabbath’s most formidable lineups ever: matching the two Tonys with veteran bassist Neil Murray (Whitesnake, Gary Moore, etc.) and experienced journeyman Cozy Powell (too many associations to list) — one of the few drummers in possession of an instantly recognizable sound. It’s Powell, in fact, who leads the Sabs back out to the battlefield when he detonates the reverie of atmospheric intro “The Gates of Hell” with his echoing, pounding war drums, but naturally everything on offer is ultimately bound to, and dependent upon, Iommi’s almighty riffs — from whence all rivers flow. This includes morbid monster-pieces such as “Kill in the Spirit World” and “Call of the Wild,” which quake with simply massive power chords yet still manage to flow seamlessly into slightly more upbeat radio-friendly numbers like “Devil and Daughter” and “Black Moon.” Likewise, whereas “When Death Calls” is surely one of Iommi’s most spine-chilling compositions ever in terms of sheer malevolent force, the equally bewitching “Nightwing” flips the coin entirely with its delicate acoustic guitars and (dare it be said) highly romantic lyrics. In short, for those wise enough to appreciate Black Sabbath’s discography beyond the Osbourne and Dio essentials, there can be no better place to start than Headless Cross or its worthy predecessor, The Eternal Idol. (by Eduardo Rivadavia)

Personnel:
Laurence Cottle (bass)
Tony Iommi (guitar)
Tony Martin (vocals)
Geoff Nicholls (keyboards)
Cozy Powell (drums, percussion)
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Brian May (first guitar solo on 04.)

The picture disc edition:

Tracklist:
01. The Gates Of Hell (instrumental) (Iommi/Powell/Nicholls) 1.07
02. Headless Cross (Martin/Iommi/Powell) 6.28
03. Devil & Daughter (Martin/Iommi/Powell) 4.43
04. When Death Calls (Martin/Iommi/Powell/Nicholls) 6.55
05. Kill In The Spirit World (Iommi/Powell/Martin) 5.08
06. Call Of The Wild (Iommi/Powell/Martin) 5.19
07. Black Moon (Martin/Iommi/Powell/Nicholls) 4.04
08. Nightwing (Martin/Iommi/Powell) 6.30
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09. Cloak And Dagger (picture disc bonus track) (Martin/Iommi/Powell 4.43

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More from Black Sabbath in this blog:

The official website:

Black Sabbath – Never Say Die (1978)

Black Sabbath were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal music. The band helped define the genre with releases such as Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master of Reality (1971). The band had multiple line-up changes following Osbourne’s departure in 1979, with Iommi being the only constant member throughout their history.

After previous iterations of the group – the Polka Tulk Blues Band and Earth – the band settled on the name Black Sabbath in 1969. They distinguished themselves through occult themes with horror-inspired lyrics and down-tuned guitars. Signing to Philips Records in November 1969, they released their first single, “Evil Woman”, in January 1970, and their debut album, Black Sabbath, was released the following month.

Though it received a negative critical response, the album was a commercial success, leading to a follow-up record, Paranoid, later that year. The band’s popularity grew, and by 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, critics were starting to respond favourably. This album, along with its predecessor Vol. 4 (1972) and its successors Sabotage (1975), Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978), saw the band explore more experimental and progressive styles.

Osbourne’s excessive substance abuse led to his firing in 1979. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Sabbath recorded two albums with Dio, Heaven and Hell (1980) and Mob Rules (1981), the second of which saw drummer Vinny Appice replace Ward. Following Dio and Appice’s departures, Butler and Iommi recorded Born Again (1983) with Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan and Ward returning on drums. Black Sabbath split in 1984, with Iommi assembling a new version of the band the following year. For the next twelve years, the band endured many personnel changes that included vocalists Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin, as well as several drummers and bassists. Martin, who replaced Gillen in 1987, was the second-longest serving vocalist after Osbourne and recorded three albums with Black Sabbath before his dismissal in 1991. That same year, Iommi rejoined with Butler, Dio and Appice to record Dehumanizer (1992). After two more studio albums with Martin, who returned to replace Dio in 1993, the band’s original line-up reunited in 1997 and released a live album, Reunion, the following year; they continued to tour occasionally until 2005. Other than various back catalogue reissues and compilation albums, as well as the Mob Rules-era line-up reuniting as Heaven & Hell, there was no further activity under the Black Sabbath name until 2011 with the release of their final studio album and 19th overall, 13, in 2013, which features all of the original members except Ward. During their farewell tour, the band played their final concert in their home city of Birmingham on 4 February 2017. Occasional partial reunions have happened since, most recently when Osbourne and Iommi performed together at the closing ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Black Sabbath have sold over 70 million records worldwide as of 2013, making them one of the most commercially successful heavy metal bands. Black Sabbath, together with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, have been referred to as the “unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-seventies”. They were ranked by MTV as the “Greatest Metal Band of All Time” and placed second on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock” list. Rolling Stone magazine ranked them number 85 on their “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Black Sabbath were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. They have also won two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance, and in 2019 the band were presented a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (wikipedia)

Never Say Die! is the eighth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released on 29 September 1978. It was the last studio album with the band’s original lineup and the last studio album to feature original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne until the 2013 album 13. It was certified Gold in the U.S on 7 November 1997 and as of November 2011 has sold 133,000 copies in the United States since the SoundScan era. The album received mixed reviews, with critics calling it “unbalanced” and insisting its energy was scattered in too many directions. (wikipedia)

After going their separate ways for a brief period following the emotionally taxing and drug-infested Technical Ecstasy tour, Black Sabbath and singer Ozzy Osbourne reconciled long enough to record 1978’s Never Say Die! — an album whose varied but often unfocused songs perfectly reflected the band’s uneasy state of affairs at the time. Even the surprisingly energetic title track, which seemed to kick things off with a promising bang, couldn’t entirely mask the group’s fading enthusiasm just beneath the surface after a few repeated listens. The same was true of half-hearted performances like “Shock Wave” and “Over to You,” and there were several songs on the record that sound strangely disjointed, specifically “Junior’s Eyes” and the synthesizer-doused “Johnny Blade” — as though their creation came in fits and starts, rather than through cohesive band interaction. But when it came to wild, stylistic departures, one’s disappointing realization that the lurching, saxophone-led “Breakout” came from — and then went back to — absolutely nowhere was easily offset by the stunningly successful oddity that was “Air Dance.”

Arguably the most experimental song in Black Sabbath’s entire canon, this uncharacteristically mild-mannered and effortlessly evocative ballad saw Tony Iommi’s normally bullish guitar giving way to simply mesmerizing piano flourishes performed by leading session keyboardist Don Airey. If only it had represented a bold new direction (albeit one that die-hard fans would never have accepted) rather than just another sign of the band’s quickly fraying sense of identity, Black Sabbath’s original lineup may have found a way to save itself — but Never Say Die!’s incoherent musical aggregate in fact betrayed the harsh reality that it was indeed too late. So even though those same die-hard Black Sabbath fans and completists will likely find some redeeming value in Never Say Die! after all these years, the original lineup’s final gasp will hold little interest to the average heavy metal fan. (by Eduardo Rivadavia)

But …
… First BS album I ever bought. Never understood why everyone (including the band) seemed to hate it so.
Johnny Blade, Junior’s Eyes & Air Dance are all just prefect.  (herbertvonzinderneuf8547)

Personnel:
Geezer Butler (bass, background vocals on 04.)
Tony Iommi (guitar, background vocals on 04.)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums, vocals on 09., background vocals on 04.)
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Don Airey (keyboards)
Jon Elstar (harmonica on 09.)

Tracklist:
01. Never Say Die 3.48
02. Johnny Blade 6.29
03. Junior’s Eyes 6.41
04. (A) Hard Road 5.59
05. Shock Wave 5.14
06. Air Dance 5.15
07. Over To You 5.18
08. Breakout” (instrumental) (2.35) /  Swinging The Chain (4:06) 6.52

All songs written by
Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne & Bill Ward

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More from Black Sabbath in this blog:

The official website:

Pic of the day: One of the first pictures …

… taken of Black Sabbath, 1968:

Black Sabbath – California Jam 1974 – The Complete Master (2020)

The massive Cal Jam took place in Ontario, California in the Spring of 1974, the event was done in part with ABC television who would broadcast parts of the festival. The bill of Deep Purple, ELP, Sabbath, as well as Black Oak Arkansas and the Eagles drew a staggering 250,000 music fans to the day long event. While the Deep Purple set has been released on both audio and video, precious little of the Sabbath set has made its way to fans on video, but thankfully the soundboard audio of the band’s entire performance has been circulating for some time. There have been several previous releases of this recording, Metal Mess (Oh Boy 1-9016), Bagdad (German Records GR-032), Live USA (Imtrate IMT 900-098), Iron Man Vol 2 (Bananna BAN 053-B), Canadian Nightmare (Aulica A 120), Canabis Confusion (Chase The Dragon CTD 005), and most recently on the third disc of 1974 (No Label). The soundboard audio source is excellent, instruments and vocals are cleanly heard with perfect balance, by far the best sounding document of the tour. It is however, a bare bones kind of recording that robs it of that concert ambiance, the band is in excellent form and rise to the occasion and gives the largest crowd they had played to at this point something to remember.

I pulled out my copy of the No Label release 1974, disc 3 which features this recording for comparison. This new Zodiac title sounds a notch louder but much clearer than the no label. The No Label has a layer of noise that is not found on the Zodiac which is certainly from a better generation recording and thus is a nice upgrade. There are a few other items of interest, this version includes a snippet of the introduction, a stage introduction of “Black Sabbath” whereas the No Label begins with the opening riff of Tomorrows Dream. There is a tape stretch three minutes into Sweet Leaf that is not found on the No Label as well.

Tomorrows Dream is the opening number, its short and sweet it sets the stage for the lumbering “Sweet Leaf” but for me things heat up as the band go into “Killing Yourself To Live”. The new song is played perfectly, it also includes some kind of swirling noise effect that is interesting to say the least. Ozzy demands “Smoke it” then as if doing it himself “Get High” that is followed by some stoned laughter. “War Pigs” does not have the storm sounds and the siren typically found at the beginning of the song, most probably due to it being a festival set. You can clearly here Bill Ward’s count in to “Snowblind”, Tony plays a beautiful yet mournful solo that is perfect for the bleakness of the song.

Ozzy introduces a new song and says he can’t say too much as they are “on the telly”, the band then play another long “Sabbara Cadabra” complete with all the jams and solos, but this time due to time constraints “Black Sabbath” is not included. There are no keys on the song, unlike the Scandinavium Occultism (Tarantura TCDBS-8) release, with no crowd noise it does sound a bit thin in places. The jam is the same as the Providence one, they play the “Supernaut” jam and the funky jam is great due to Geezer being clear in the mix, we can fully enjoy his contribution. Iron Man is played in full within the Sabbra Cadabra jam, Ozzy’s voice sounds particularly interesting during the “I Am Iron Man” intro and while the music does not sound affected, his vocals for the beginning of the song sound as if he has some kind of warped vocal effect as the music lumbers across the stage, yes it is very heavy.

Again Iommi rips out a great solo just prior to the “Sabbra Cadabra” reprise, Ozzy gives him a solo introduction as the band breaks into the latter. During this part of the song the bass is even more bass heavy, thankfully it clears in time for “Paranoid”. Ozzy thanks the large audience for the “great time” and they play the set finishing “Paranoid”. The band finish with a high energy and simply rousing version of “Children Of The Grave”, one can feel the energy bristling from the notes, if you have ever seen the video you know how the energy was translating to the audience. This set really showcases how great a live band Sabbath was in their prime.

As a bonus Zodiac has included a 1:22 interview with Ozzy pre and post show, he seems legitimately moved by the experience of playing to the massive crowd. He also speaks of how well organized the event is. I have seen these interviews before, most notably on the old History Of Black Sabbath VHS tape. A nice addition to this set.

The packaging is typical for Zodiac, full color inserts wonderfully showcasing the band onstage at the California Jam, the front cover is similar to the No Label 1974, an overhead shot of the band looking dwarfed by the massive crowd. Of course a picture CD and numbered sticker are included. A very nice release by Zodiac of Black Sabbath’s classic Cal Jam 1974 performance in front of a quarter million fans. (collectorsmusicreviews.com)

Recorded live at the “California Jam I”, Ontario Motor Speedway, CA, USA 6th April 1974

Personnel:
Geezer Butler (bass)
Tony Iommi (guitar)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums)

Tracklist:
01. Tomorrow’s Dream 3.23
02. Sweet Leaf 6.08
03. Killing Yourself To Live 6.14
04. War Pigs 8.14
05. Snowblind 5.38
06. Sabbra Cadabra 5.09
07. Jam / Guitar Solo #1 (Iommi) 6.49
08. Sometimes I’m Happy 2.55
09. Drum Solo (Ward) 2.44
10. Supernaut 2.04
11. Iron Man 5.48
12. Guitar Solo / Jam #2 (Iommi) 6.54
13. Sabbra Cadabra (Reprise) 2.11
14. Paranoid 4.34
15. Embryo / Children Of The Grave 5.00
16. Interview 1.23

Music written by Geezer Butler – Tony Iommi – Ozzy Osbourne – Bill Ward

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More from Black Sabbath:

Black Sabbath – Vol. 4 (1972)

Vol. 4 is the fourth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released in September 1972. It was the first album by Black Sabbath not produced by Rodger Bain; guitarist Tony Iommi assumed production duties. Patrick Meehan, the band’s then-manager, was listed as co-producer, though his actual involvement in the album’s production was minimal.

In June 1972, Black Sabbath began work on their fourth album at the Record Plant studios in Los Angeles.

“It’s the first album we’ve produced ourselves,” observed Ozzy Osbourne. “Previously we had Rodger Bain as a producer – and, although he’s very good, he didn’t really feel what the band was doing. It was a matter of communication. This time, we did it with Patrick, our manager, and I think we’re all very happy… It was great to work in an American studio.”[1]

The recording was plagued with problems, many due to substance abuse. In the studio, the band regularly had speaker boxes full of cocaine delivered.

Struggling to record “Cornucopia” after “sitting in the middle of the room, just doing drugs”,[3] Bill Ward feared that he was to be fired: “I hated the song, there were some patterns that were just horrible. I nailed it in the end, but the reaction I got was the cold shoulder from everybody. It was like ‘Well, just go home, you’re not being of any use right now.’ I felt like I’d blown it, I was about to get fired.”

According to the book How Black Was Our Sabbath, Ward “was always a drinker, but rarely appeared drunk. Retrospectively, that might have been a danger sign. Now, his self-control was clearly slipping.” Iommi claims in his autobiography that Ward almost died after a prank-gone-wrong during recording. The Bel Air mansion the band was renting belonged to John du Pont and the band found several spray cans of gold DuPont paint in a room of the house; finding Ward naked and unconscious after drinking heavily, they proceeded to cover the drummer in gold paint from head to toe. According to Sharon Osbourne’s memoirs, a Doberman at the mansion got into part of the band’s cocaine supply, laced with the baby laxative mannitol, and became ill from the effects of the drug.

The Vol. 4 sessions could be viewed as the point when the seeds were planted for the demise of Sabbath’s classic line-up. Bassist Geezer Butler told Guitar World in 2001: “The cocaine had set in. We went out to L.A. and got into a totally different lifestyle. Half the budget went on the coke and the other half went to seeing how long we could stay in the studio … We rented a house in Bel Air and the debauchery up there was just unbelievable.” In the same interview, Ward said: “Vol. 4 is a great album, but listening to it now, I can see it as a turning point for me, where the alcohol and drugs stopped being fun.” To Guitar World in 1992, Iommi admitted, “L.A. was a real distraction for us, and that album ended up sounding a bit strange. The people who were involved with the record really didn’t have a clue. They were all learning with us, and we didn’t know what we were doing either. The experimental stage we began with Master of Reality continued with Vol. 4, and we were trying to widen our sound and break out of the bag everyone had put us into.” In the liner notes to 1998’s Reunion, Iommi reflected, “By the time we got to Bel Air we were totally gone. It really was a case of wine, women and song, and we were doing more drugs than ever before.” In his memoir Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath, the guitarist says, “Like Tony Montana in the movie Scarface: we’d put a big pile (of cocaine) on the table, carve it all up and then we’d all have a bit, well, quite a lot.”

In his autobiography I Am Ozzy, Osbourne speaks at length about the sessions: “In spite of all the arsing around, musically those few weeks in Bel Air were the strongest we’d ever been.” But he admits, “Eventually we started to wonder where the fuck all the coke was coming from … that coke was the whitest, purest, strongest stuff you could ever imagine. One sniff, and you were king of the universe.” Osbourne also recounts the band’s ongoing anxiety over the possibility of being busted, which worsened after they went to the cinema to see The French Connection (1971), about undercover New York City cops busting an international heroin-smuggling ring. “By the time the credits rolled,” Osbourne recalled, “I was hyperventilating.” In 2013, Butler admitted to Mojo magazine that heroin, too, had entered the picture: “We sniffed it, we never shot up … I didn’t realize how nuts things had gotten until I went home and the girl I was with didn’t recognize me.”

Vol. 4 saw Black Sabbath beginning to experiment with the heavy sound they had become known for. In June 2013 Mojo declared, “If booze and dope had helped fuel Sabbath’s earlier albums, Vol. 4 is their cocaine … Despite their spiraling addictions, musically Vol. 4 is another ambitious outing. The band’s heavy side remains intact on the likes of ‘Tomorrow’s Dream’, ‘Cornucopia’ and the seismic ‘Supernaut’ (a firm favorite of Frank Zappa, featuring Bill Ward’s soul-inspired breakdown), but the guitar intro on ‘St. Vitus Dance’ possesses a jaunty, Led Zeppelin-flavoured quality, while ‘Laguna Sunrise’ is an evocative neo-classical Iommi instrumental.” After being up all night and watching the sunrise at Laguna Beach, Iommi composed the song. In the studio, an orchestra accompanied Iommi’s guitar, although they refused to perform until their parts were properly written out. The same orchestra performed on “Snowblind”.

“Snowblind” is the band’s most obvious reference to cocaine, their drug of choice during this period. Snowblind was also the album’s working title, but Vertigo Records executives were reluctant to release an album with such an obvious drug reference. The liner notes thank “the great COKE-cola” and, in his autobiography, Osbourne notes, “Snowblind was one of Black Sabbath’s best-ever albums – although the record company wouldn’t let us keep the title, ‘cos in those days cocaine was a big deal, and they didn’t want the hassle of a controversy. We didn’t argue.”

Although most of the album is in the band’s trademark heavy style, some songs demonstrate a more sensitive approach. “Changes”, for example, written by Iommi with lyrics by Butler, is a piano ballad with mellotron. Iommi taught himself to play the piano after finding one in the ballroom of the Bel-Air mansion they were renting. It was on this piano that “Changes” was composed.[2] “Tony just sat down at the piano and came up with this beautiful riff,” Osbourne writes in his memoir. “I hummed a melody over the top, and Geezer wrote these heartbreaking lyrics about the break-up Bill was going through with his wife. I thought that was brilliant from the moment we recorded it.”

“FX” came about unexpectedly in the studio. After smoking hashish, the crucifix hanging from Iommi’s neck accidentally struck the strings of his guitar and the band took an interest in the odd sound produced. An echo effect was added and the band proceeded to hit the guitar with various objects to generate odd sound effects. Iommi calls the song “a total joke”.

Of “Wheels of Confusion”, Henry Rollins said: “It’s about alienation and being lost in the wheels of confusion, which is the way I find myself a lot of the time. Sabbath could be my favourite band. It’s the ultimate lonely man’s rock. There’s something about their music that’s so painful and yet so powerful.”

The album, Tony Iommi told Circus’s sister magazine Circus Raves, “was such a complete change – we felt we had jumped an album, really … We had tried to go too far.”

The album cover features a monochrome photograph of Ozzy Osbourne with hands raised throwing the peace sign, taken during a Black Sabbath concert. The album’s original release (on Vertigo in the UK, on Warner Bros. in the United States and on Nippon Phonogram in Japan) features a gatefold sleeve with a page glued into the middle. Each band member is given his own photo page, with the band on-stage at the Birmingham Town Hall (and photographed from behind) at the very centre.

Vol. 4 was released in September 1972, and while most critics of the era were dismissive of the album, it achieved gold status in less than a month, and was the band’s fourth consecutive release to sell one million copies in the United States. It reached number 13 on Billboard’s pop album chart and number 8 on the UK Albums Chart. The song “Tomorrow’s Dream” was released as a single but failed to chart. Following an extensive tour of the United States, the band toured Australia for the first time in 1973, and later Europe. (by wikipedia)

Vol. 4 is the point in Black Sabbath’s career where the band’s legendary drug consumption really starts to make itself felt. And it isn’t just in the lyrics, most of which are about the blurry line between reality and illusion. Vol. 4 has all the messiness of a heavy metal Exile on Main St., and if it lacks that album’s overall diversity, it does find Sabbath at their most musically varied, pushing to experiment amidst the drug-addled murk. As a result, there are some puzzling choices made here (not least of which is the inclusion of “FX”), and the album often contradicts itself. Ozzy Osbourne’s wail is becoming more powerful here, taking greater independence from Tony Iommi’s guitar riffs, yet his vocals are processed into a nearly textural element on much of side two. Parts of Vol. 4 are as ultra-heavy as Master of Reality, yet the band also takes its most blatant shots at accessibility to date — and then undercuts that very intent. The effectively concise “Tomorrow’s Dream” has a chorus that could almost be called radio-ready, were it not for the fact that it only appears once in the entire song. “St. Vitus Dance” is surprisingly upbeat, yet the distant-sounding vocals don’t really register. The notorious piano-and-Mellotron ballad “Changes” ultimately fails not because of its change-of-pace mood, but more for a raft of the most horrendously clichéd rhymes this side of “moon-June.”

Even the crushing “Supernaut” — perhaps the heaviest single track in the Sabbath catalog — sticks a funky, almost danceable acoustic breakdown smack in the middle. Besides “Supernaut,” the core of Vol. 4 lies in the midtempo cocaine ode “Snowblind,” which was originally slated to be the album’s title track until the record company got cold feet, and the multi-sectioned prog-leaning opener, “Wheels of Confusion.” The latter is one of Iommi’s most complex and impressive compositions, varying not only riffs but textures throughout its eight minutes. Many doom and stoner metal aficionados prize the second side of the album, where Osbourne’s vocals gradually fade further and further away into the murk, and Iommi’s guitar assumes center stage. The underrated “Cornucopia” strikes a better balance of those elements, but by the time “Under the Sun” closes the album, the lyrics are mostly lost under a mountain of memorable, contrasting riffery. Add all of this up, and Vol. 4 is a less cohesive effort than its two immediate predecessors, but is all the more fascinating for it. Die-hard fans sick of the standards come here next, and some end up counting this as their favorite Sabbath record for its eccentricities and for its embodiment of the band’s excesses. (by Steve Huey)

Personnel:
Geezer Butler (bass, mellotron)
Tony Iommi (guitar, piano, mellotron)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums, percussion)

Tracklist:
01. Wheels Of Confusion (including The Straightener) 8.12
02. Tomorrow’s Dream 3.09
03. Changes 4.43
04. FX (Instrumental) 1.40
05. Supernaut 4.44
06. Snowblind 5.28
7. “Cornucopia” 3:55 [26]
8. “Laguna Sunrise” (instrumental) 2:56
9. “St. Vitus Dance” 2:30
10. Under The Sun (including Every Day Comes And Goes) 5.53

Music written by Geezer Butler – Tony Iommi – Ozzy Osbourne – Bill Ward)
Lyrics: Geezer Butler.

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More from Black Sabbath:

Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the fifth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released in December 1973. It was produced by the band and recorded at Morgan Studios in London in September 1973.

Black Sabbath released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath on 1 December 1973. For the first time in their career, the band began to receive favourable reviews in the mainstream press, with Rolling Stone calling the album “an extraordinarily gripping affair”, and “nothing less than a complete success”. The album marked the band’s fifth consecutive platinum selling album in the United States. It reached number four on the UK charts, and number eleven in the US. In the UK, it was the first Black Sabbath album to attain Silver certification (60,000 units sold) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in February 1975. The album would go on to be regarded in high esteem by the band members themselves; when asked by Guitar for the Practicing Musician in 1994 which songs he would like to see on the upcoming Black Sabbath box set, Butler replied, “Probably anything off of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” itself. It was a whole new era for us. We felt really open on that album. It was a great atmosphere, good time, great coke! Just like a new birth for me. We had done the first four albums and done it that way. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was like Part Two of your life. It was a weird feeling; a good feeling.” In his memoir, Iommi calls the album “the pinnacle.” (by wikipedia)

Singles from all over the world

The song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” has been singled out for praise by many hard rock and heavy metal guitar players, with Slash from Guns N’ Roses stating to Guitar World in 2008, “The outro to ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ is the heaviest shit I have ever heard in my life. To this day, I haven’t heard anything as heavy that has as much soul.” Brent Hinds of Mastodon agrees, telling Nick Bowcott in 2008, “The ‘dreams turn to nightmares, Heaven turns to Hell’ riff at the end of that song is unbeatable.” Kirk Hammett of Metallica cites “Killing Yourself to Live” as his favourite Black Sabbath song, revealing in the Holiday 2008 issue of Guitar World that “A lot of people gravitate toward the album’s title track, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, but for me this is the stand out cut on the album.”

With 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath made a concerted effort to prove their remaining critics wrong by raising their creative stakes and dispensing unprecedented attention to the album’s production standards, arrangements, and even the cover artwork. As a result, bold new efforts like the timeless title track, “A National Acrobat,” and “Killing Yourself to Live” positively glistened with a newfound level of finesse and maturity, while remaining largely faithful, aesthetically speaking, to the band’s signature compositional style. In fact, their sheer songwriting excellence may even have helped to ease the transition for suspicious older fans left yearning for the rough-hewn, brute strength that had made recent triumphs like Master of Reality and Vol. 4 (really, all their previous albums) such undeniable forces of nature.

But thanks to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’s nearly flawless execution, even a more adventurous experiment like the string-laden “Spiral Architect,” with its tasteful background orchestration, managed to sound surprisingly natural, and in the dreamy instrumental “Fluff,” Tony Iommi scored his first truly memorable solo piece. If anything, only the group’s at times heavy-handed adoption of synthesizers met with inconsistent consequences, with erstwhile Yes keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman bringing only good things to the memorable “Sabbra Cadabra” (who know he was such a great boogie-woogie pianist?), while the robotically dull “Who Are You” definitely suffered from synthesizer novelty overkill. All things considered, though, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was arguably Black Sabbath’s fifth masterpiece in four years, and remains an essential item in any heavy metal collection. (by Eduardo Rivadavia)

And “Fluff” is another highlight in the history of Black Sabbath´accoustic tracks !

Personnel:
Geezer Butler (bass, synthesizer. mellotron on 06., nose flute on 08.)
Tony Iommi (guitar, piano 0n 03., 04., + 06.,  synthesizer on 05. + 06., harpsichord on 08., organ on 07., flute on 07., bagpipes on 08.)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals, synthesizer on 05. + 06.)
Bill Ward (drums, percussion)
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Rick Wakeman (piano, synthesizer on 03.)

Tracklist:
01. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 5.45
02. A National Acrobat 6.13
03. Fluff (instrumental) 4.09
04. Sabbra Cadabra 5.58
05. Killing Yourself To Live 5.42
06. Who Are You? 4.10
07. Looking For Today 5.02
08. Spiral Architect 5.32

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More Black Sabbath:

Various Artists – The Vertigo Annual (1970)

Vertigo Records was the late 60s progressive rock arm of the Philips Records empire.

Vertigo Records is a record company, which originated in the United Kingdom. It was a subsidiary of the Philips/Phonogram record label, launched in 1969 to specialise in progressive rock and other non-mainstream musical styles. Today it is operated by Universal Music UK.

Vertigo was the brainchild of Olav Wyper when he was Creative Director at Phonogram. It was launched as a competitor to labels such as Harvest (a prog subsidiary of EMI) and Deram (Decca). It was the home to bands such as Colosseum, Jade Warrior, Affinity, Ben and other bands from ‘the “cutting edge” of the early-’70s British prog-folk-post-psych circuit’. The first Vertigo releases came with a distinctive black and white spiral label, which was replaced with Roger Dean’s spaceship design in 1973.

Vertigo later became the European home to various hard rock bands signed to Mercury in North America, such as Bon Jovi, Rush and Kiss.

Vertigo is a division of Island Records in the United States and operates as Virgin EMI Records in the UK, which in turn is a frontline music group operation of Universal Music UK. In Germany, Vertigo has merged with Capitol Records and is mainly used for German rock artists. The label’s legacy artists include Metallica (outside the US and Canada), Razorlight, Rush (Europe) and Dire Straits (except the US). More recent signings include The Rapture, The Killers (UK/Ireland), One Night Only, Amy Macdonald, Noisettes and Thee Unstrung 2004-2005 and Kassidy in 2009. Black Sabbath returned to the label in 2013 (including the US and Canada for the first time via sister label Republic) until their dissolution in 2017 although former sister label Sanctuary Records Group acquired international rights to their back catalogue in the interim (the band were last on Vertigo in 1987). (by wikipedia)

And here´s a damn good sampler, the first sampler of the legendary Vertigo Label:

A two-LP label sampler from the nascent Vertigo label — Polygram’s answer to EMI’s progressive — psychedelic boutique, Harvest. Overall, for a label sampler, this was a better than average double slab of vinyl, with tried-and-true heavy cuts (from Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Juicy Lucy, May Blitz) jostling for space with lighter stuff (Magna Carta, Dr. Strangely Strange). Rod Stewart turns up as well, with an early solo outing on “Handbags and Gladrags.” (by Steven McDonald)

The title of this double label sampler leads one to believe that there were plans for an annual release, but Vertigo never got any further than 1970. Contrary to the ‘Heads together’ sampler, this one contains previously released material only and so serves quite succeedingly as an introduction to Vertigo’s miracles.The contents are chosen with taste: almost every track is among the best from the respective album and therefore this sampler comes recommended for anyone who wants to start to explore what the fuzz is all about.Red foliage surely is a favourite of Keef the album designer. This time a naked lady on a dotted hobby-horse fronts the landscape. A small boy dressed in parade uniform plays the drum and looks at her. Quite striking.

The lettering is chosen in accordance to the ‘annual’ idea and could have been taken from any children’s annual of the times.

Inside the horse’s head is displayed in a coloured negative photograph and also proudly quotes underground magazine ‘it’: Vertigo is the least pretentiously and most happily married of the ‘progressive’ labels to emerge from ‘neath the wings of the large record companies.

One of those indispensable samplers, with so much going for it – label design, musical quality, rare tracks, top audio and alluring cover pics – it has become a collectors item by own merits. One cut each from the sixteen first albums realeased by the label. Most represented here didn’t sell a lot back then and the originals can sometimes be hard to find or afford. I haven’t had or heard all of those so I can’t compare, but get the impression they picked the better or best from each.

Some compilations have at least one downer regarding track choice or audio. On here I can’t find one thing less than marvelous. From the happy-go-luckys Fairfield Parlour “In My Box” and Magna Carta “Going My Way” over the heavy Sabbath, Juicy Lucy and Uriah Heep cuts to the jazzier Nucleus, Colosseum and May Blitz it’s all tophole.

Vertigo was a highly collectable label . and this sampler is the best way to start with this cult label…

Tracklist:
01. Colosseum; Elegy (from “Valentyne Suite VO1”) (Litherland) 3.10
02. Rod Stewart: Handbags And Gladrags (from “An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down VO4”) (d’Abo) 4.26
03. Jimmy Campbell: Half Baked (from “Half Baked 6360010”) (Campbell) 4.43
04. May Blitz: I Don’t Know (from “May Blitz 6360007”) (Black/Hudson/Newman) 4.50
05. Juicy Lucy: Mississippi Woman (from “Juicy Lucy VO2”) (Hubbart/Campbell/Mercer/ Ellis/Owen/Dobson) 3.49
06. Fairfield Parlour: In My Box (from “From Home To Home 6360001”) (Pumer/Daltrey) 2.00
07. Magna Carta: Goin’ My Way (Road Song) (from “Seasons 6360003”) (Simpson) 2.55
08. Affinity: Three Sisters (from “Affinity 6360004”) (Hoile/Naiff) 5.01
09. Black Sabbath: Behind The Wall Of Sleep (from “Black Sabbath VO6”) (Ward/Butler/ Osbourne/Iommi) 3.41
10. Gracious; Introduction (from “Gracious! 6360002” (Kitcat/Davis) 5.56
11. Cressida: To Play Your Little Game (from “Cressida VO7”) (Heyworth) 3.22
12. Nucleus: Elastic Rock (from “Elastic Rock 6360008”) (Jenkins) 4.06
13. Manfred Mann Chapter Three: One Way Glass (from “Manfred Mann Chapter Three VO3”) (Mann/Thomas) 3.36
14. Bob Downes: No Time Like The Present (from “Electric City 6360005”) (Downes) 3.05
15. Dr. Strangely Strange: Summer Breeze (from “Heavy Petting 6360009”) (Booth) 3.42
16. Uriah Heep: Gypsy (from “…Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble… 6360006”) (Byron/Box) 6.57
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17. Catapilla: Changes (from “Changes 6360 074”) (Wilson/Calvert/Meek) 12.05
18. Gravy Train: Think Of Life (from “Gravy Train 6360 023”) (Davenport/Hughes/Barratt /Cordwell/Williams) 5.10
19. Jade Warrior: May Queen (from ” Last Autumn’s Dream 6360 079″) (Havard/ Field/ Duhig) 5.24
20. Mike Absalom: Frightened Of The Dark (from “Mike Absalom 6360 053 “) (Absalom) 3.25
21. Ramases: Life Child (from “Space Hymns 6360 046”) (Godley/GouldmanCreme/ Raphael ) 6.39
22. Patto: Give It All Away (from “Hold Your Fire 6360 032 ) (Patto/Halsall) 4.10

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Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality (1971)

Master of Reality is the third studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released on 21 July 1971. It is widely regarded as the foundation of doom metal, stoner rock, and sludge metal. It was certified double platinum after having sold over 2 million copies. Master of Reality was Black Sabbath’s first and only top 10 album in the US until 13, forty-two years later. (by wikipedia)

The shortest album of Black Sabbath’s glory years, Master of Reality is also their most sonically influential work. Here Tony Iommi began to experiment with tuning his guitar down three half-steps to C#, producing a sound that was darker, deeper, and sludgier than anything they’d yet committed to record. (This trick was still being copied 25 years later by every metal band looking to push the limits of heaviness, from trendy nu-metallers to Swedish deathsters.) Much more than that, Master of Reality essentially created multiple metal subgenres all by itself, laying the sonic foundations for doom, stoner and sludge metal, all in the space of just over half an hour. Classic opener “Sweet Leaf” certainly ranks as a defining stoner metal song, making its drug references far more overt (and adoring) than the preceding album’s “Fairies Wear Boots.”

The album’s other signature song, “Children of the Grave,” is driven by a galloping rhythm that would later pop up on a slew of Iron Maiden tunes, among many others. Aside from “Sweet Leaf,” much of Master of Reality finds the band displaying a stronger moral sense, in part an attempt to counteract the growing perception that they were Satanists. “Children of the Grave” posits a stark choice between love and nuclear annihilation, while “After Forever” philosophizes about death and the afterlife in an openly religious (but, of course, superficially morbid) fashion that offered a blueprint for the career of Christian doom band Trouble.

And although the alternately sinister and jaunty “Lord of This World” is sung from Satan’s point of view, he clearly doesn’t think much of his own followers (and neither, by extension, does the band). It’s all handled much like a horror movie with a clear moral message, for example The Exorcist. Past those four tracks, listeners get sharply contrasting tempos in the rumbling sci-fi tale “Into the Void,” which shortens the distances between the multiple sections of the band’s previous epics. And there’s the core of the album — all that’s left is a couple of brief instrumental interludes, plus the quiet, brooding loneliness of “Solitude,” a mostly textural piece that frames Osbourne’s phased vocals with acoustic guitars and flutes. But, if a core of five songs seems slight for a classic album, it’s also important to note that those five songs represent a nearly bottomless bag of tricks, many of which are still being imitated and explored decades later. If Paranoid has more widely known songs, the suffocating and oppressive Master of Reality was the Sabbath record that die-hard metalheads took most closely to heart. (by Steve Huey)

Personnel:
Geezer Butler (bass)
Tony Iommi (guitar, synthesizer on 02., flute, piano on 07.)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums, percussion)

Tracklist:
01. Sweet Leaf (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 5.05
02. After Forever (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 5:27
03. Embryo (Iommi) 0.28
04. Children Of The Grave (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 5.18
05. Orchid (Iommi) 1.31
06. Lord Of This World (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 5.27
07. Solitude (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 5.02
08. Into The Void (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward) 6.12

All lyrics written by Geezer Butler

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Solitude:

My name it means nothing, my fortune is less
My future is shrouded in dark wilderness
Sunshine is far away, clouds linger on
Everything I possessed, now, they are gone
They are gone, they are gone…

Oh, where can I go to and what can I do?
Nothing can please me, only thoughts are of you
You just laughed when I begged you to stay
I’ve not stopped crying since you went away
Went away, you went away…

The world is a lonely place, you’re on your own
Guess I will go home, sit down and moan
Crying and thinking is all that I do
Memories I have remind me of you
Of you, of you…

 

Black Sabbath – Sabotage (1975)

Sabotage is the sixth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released in July 1975. It was recorded in the midst of litigation with their former manager Patrick Meehan and the stress that resulted from the band’s ongoing legal woes infiltrated the recording process, inspiring the album’s title. It was co-produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and Mike Butcher.

Black Sabbath began work on their sixth album in February 1975, again in England at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London. The title Sabotage was chosen because the band were at the time being sued by their former management and felt they were being “sabotaged all the way along the line and getting punched from all sides”, according to Iommi Iommi credits those legal troubles for the album’s angry, heavier sound. In 2001, bassist Geezer Butler explained to Dan Epstein, “Around the time of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, we found out that we were being ripped off by our management and our record company. So, much of the time, when we weren’t onstage or in the studio, we were in lawyer’s offices trying to get out of all our contracts. We were literally in the studio, trying to record, and we’d be signing all these affidavits and everything. That’s why it’s called Sabotage – because we felt that the whole process was just being totally sabotaged by all these people ripping us off.” In his autobiography I Am Ozzy, singer Ozzy Osbourne confirms that “writs were being delivered to us at the mixing desk” and that drummer Bill Ward “was manning the phones”. In the liner notes to the 1998 live album Reunion, Butler claimed the band suffered through 10 months of legal cases and admitted, “music became irrelevant to me. It was a relief just to write a song.”

Tony Iommi later reflected, “We could’ve continued and gone on and on, getting more technical, using orchestras and everything else which we didn’t particularly want to. We took a look at ourselves, and we wanted to do a rock album – Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath wasn’t a rock album, really.” According to the book How Black Was Our Sabbath, “The recording sessions would usually carry on into the middle of the night. Tony Iommi was working really hard on the production side of things with the band’s co-producer Mike Butcher, and he was spending a lot of time working out his guitar sounds. Bill, too, was experimenting with the drums, especially favouring the ‘backwards cymbal’ effect.” Osbourne, however, was growing more frustrated with how long Sabbath albums were now taking to record, writing in his autobiography that “Sabotage took about four thousand years.”

Sabotage is a mix of heavy, powerful songs and softer experimental tunes, such as “Supertzar” and “Am I Going Insane (Radio)”. In 2013 Mojo observed, “Opener ‘Hole in the Sky’ and the crunching ‘Symptom of the Universe’ illustrate that, for all their problems, Sabbath’s power remained undimmed on what was what many consider one of their finest offerings.” In the article “Thrash Metal – An Introduction” in University Times Magazine, Vladimir Rakhmanin cites “Symptom of the Universe” as one of the earliest examples of thrash metal, a heavy metal subgenre which emerged in the early 1980s. Tony Iommi describes the song’s dynamics in his autobiography Iron Man: “It starts with an acoustic bit. Then it goes into the up-tempo stuff to give it that dynamic, and it does have a lot of changes to it, including the jam at the end.” The final part of “Symptom of the Universe” evolved from an in-studio improvisation, created very spontaneously in a single day and the decision was made to use it in that song. The London Philharmonic Choir was brought in to perform on the song “Supertzar”. When vocalist Ozzy Osbourne arrived at the studio and saw them, he thought he was in the wrong studio and left.[1] The title of the pop-leaning “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” caused some confusion due to the “(Radio)” part, which led people to believe the song was a radio cut or radio version. However, this is the only version of the song: the term “radio-rental” is rhyming slang for “mental”.

“The Writ” is one of only a handful of Black Sabbath songs to feature lyrics composed by vocalist Osbourne, who typically relied on bassist and lyricist Butler for lyrics. The song was inspired by the frustrations Osbourne felt at the time, as Black Sabbath’s former manager Patrick Meehan was suing the band after having been fired. The song viciously attacks the music business in general and is a savage diatribe directed towards Meehan specifically (“Are you Satan? Are you a man?”), with Osbourne revealing in his memoir, “I wrote most of the lyrics myself, which felt a bit like seeing a shrink. All the anger I felt towards Meehan came pouring out.” During this period, the band began to question if there was any point to recording albums and touring endlessly “just to pay the lawyers”.

The brief instrumental “Don’t Start (Too Late)” is an acoustic guitar showpiece for Iommi, titled for tape operator David Harris who often despaired at Sabbath being prone to start playing before he was ready.

Sabotage’s front cover art has garnered mixed reactions over the years and is regarded by some as one of the worst album covers in rock history. The inverted mirror concept was conceived by Graham Wright, Bill Ward’s drum tech who was also a graphic artist. The band attended what they believed was a test photo shoot for the album cover, thus explaining their choice of clothing. Said Ward, “The only thing we didn’t discuss was what we’d all wear on the day of the shot. Since that shoot day, the band has survived through a tirade of clothing comments and jokes that continue to this day”. Ward, in fact, was wearing his wife’s red tights in the photo. Wright recalls in the book How Black Was Our Sabbath that the plan was for each band member to appear on the cover dressed in black and had been instructed to bring some stage clothes for preliminary photos, but when they arrived no black costumes had been laid out by the designers and “the original concept had been overruled.” The designers “carried on with the shoot, explaining they would superimpose the images at a later stage and that it would look great, honest. The session was unbelievably rushed, and the outcome was far from what had been originally envisaged … Ironically, the sleeve design that was intended to illustrate the idea of sabotage had instead become a victim of sabotage itself. By the time they saw it, it was too late to change.” In 2013 Mojo commented the cover “provides a rare moment of light relief.” On the back of the original album release, Geezer’s arm is extended as the reflection is different.

Sabotage was released on 27 June 1975 and peaked at number 7 in the United Kingdom and at number 28 in the United States. It was certified Silver (60,000 units sold) in the UK by the BPI on 1 December 1975 and Gold in the US on 16 June 1997, but was the band’s first release not to achieve platinum status in the US. For the second time, a Black Sabbath album initially saw favourable reviews, with Rolling Stone stating “Sabotage is not only Black Sabbath’s best record since Paranoid, it might be their best ever”, although later reviewers such as Allmusic noted that “the magical chemistry that made such albums as Paranoid and Vol. 4 so special was beginning to disintegrate”. Guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen told Nick Bowcott of Guitar Player in 2008 that the riff to “Symptom of the Universe” was the first Tony Iommi riff he ever heard and that “Tony’s use of the flat fifth would have got him burned at the stake a couple hundred years ago.” In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked it 32nd on their “100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time” list. (by Wikipedia)

Sabotage is the final release of Black Sabbath’s legendary First Six, and it’s also the least celebrated of the bunch, though most die-hard fans would consider it criminally underrated. The band continues further down the proto-prog metal road of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and this time around, the synthesizers feel more organically integrated into the arrangements. What’s more, the song structures generally feel less conventional and more challenging. There’s one significant exception in the blatant pop tune “Am I Going Insane (Radio),” which rivals “Changes” as the most fan-loathed song of the glory years, thanks to its synth-driven arrangement (there isn’t even a guitar riff!) and oft-repeated one-line chorus. But other than that song and the terrific album opener, “Hole in the Sky,” the band largely eschews the standard verse-chorus format, sticking to one or two melody lines per riffed section and changing up the feel before things get too repetitive. The prevalence of this writing approach means that Sabotage rivals Vol. 4 as the least accessible record of Sabbath’s glory years. However, given time, the compositional logic reveals itself, and most of the record will burn itself into the listener’s brain just fine. The faster than usual “Symptom of the Universe” is a stone-cold classic, its sinister main riff sounding like the first seed from which the New Wave of British Heavy Metal would sprout (not to mention an obvious blueprint for Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?”). Like several songs on the record, “Symptom” features unexpected acoustic breaks and softer dynamics, yet never loses its drive or focus, and always feels like Sabbath. Less immediate but still rewarding are “Thrill of It All,” with its triumphant final section, and the murky, sullen “Megalomania,” which never feels as long as its nearly nine and a half minutes. But more than the compositions, the real revelation on Sabotage is Ozzy Osbourne, who turns in his finest vocal performance as a member of Black Sabbath. Really for the first time, this is the Ozzy we all know, displaying enough range, power, and confidence to foreshadow his hugely successful solo career. He saves the best for last with album closer “The Writ,” one of the few Sabbath songs where his vocal lines are more memorable than Tony Iommi’s guitar parts; running through several moods over the course of the song’s eight minutes, it’s one of the best performances of his career, bar none. Unfortunately, after Sabotage, the wheels of confusion came off entirely. Yes, there were technically two more albums, but for the non-obsessive, the story of Osbourne-era Sabbath effectively ends here. (by Steve Huey)

Personnel:
Terry “Geezer” Butler (bass)
Tony Iommi (guitar,  keyboards, synthesizer, harmonica)
Ozzy Osbourne (vocals)
Bill Ward (drums, percussion (piano, Background vocals on  and backing vocals on “Blow on a Jug”)
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English Chamber Choir conducted by Will Malone

Tracklist:
01. Hole In The Sky 4.00
02. Don’t Start (Too Late) 0.49
03. Symptom Of The Universe 6.29
04. Megalomania 946
05. The Thrill Of It All 5.56
06. “Supertzar” (Instrumental with vocalising choir) 3:44
07. Am I Going Insane (Radio) 4.17
08. The Writ / Blow On A Jug 8.46

All songs written by:
Terry “Geezer” Butler – Tony Iommi – Ozzy Osbourne – Bill Ward

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I’m looking through a hole in the sky
I’m seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I’m getting closer to the end of the line
I’m living easy where the sun doesn’t shine

I’m living in a room without any view
I’m living free because the rent’s never due
The synonym of all the things that I’ve said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head

Hole in the sky
Gateway to heaven
Window in time
Through it I fly

I’ve seen the stars that disappear in the sun
But shooting’s easy if you’ve got the right gun
And even though I’m sitting waiting for Mars
I don’t believe there’s any future in cars

I’ve watched the dogs 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
But now I’m living on the profits of crime