Published on Dec 23, 1997
It’s been some time since we dusted off anything from seminal
British hard-rockers Black Sabbath, and seeing that it’s the
Christmas season, well… fill in your “black Mass” joke here.
When
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath came out in 1974, Ozzy Osbourne and
crew were running at the creative peak of their career. Black
Sabbath had done two unthinkables: created a melodic heavy metal
album, and topped their other great album
Paranoid as their best work. Just one album later, on 1975’s
Sabotage, they tried to re-create the feel they had captured
on
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath… big mistake.
The album starts off heavy enough with “Hole In The Sky,”
featuring Osbourne’s traditional banshee wailing and some killer
guitar riffs from Tony Iommi – his rhythm playing just continued to
get better and better as the band matured. The short “experiment”
track “Don’t Start (Too Late)” and another killer riff-oriented
number, “Symptom Of The Universe,” all seem to be pointing in the
right direction for Black Sabbath.
Ah, but when they try to capture the beautiful melodies and
intricacies of
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band goes too far overboard, and
the songs stretch out unbelievably long. “Meglomania” is just one
example of this excess — changing musical styles halfway through
the track sometimes works – not this time. For the first time in
their career, it seems like Black Sabbath is grasping at
straws.
Further evidence of this is their attempt to make a
radio-friendly song, “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” — not a terrible
track in and of itself, but definitely not what Black Sabbath had
built themselves up to be.
So what happened in the span of one year? Obviously tensions
were beginning to run high in the band; Osbourne would make his
first exit after the band’s next album, the start of numerous
lineup changes for the band. I would venture to say that both
tensions in the band and the drying up of the creative juices
caused
Sabotage to be a subpar album. And let’s face it, the album
had a major obstacle ahead of it: top
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, a feat I don’t think many albums
could accomplish.
Is
Sabotage a bad album? Not really…. it’s just disappointing
when compared to Black Sabbath’s previous work. In the band’s
effort to move forward by repeating their successes, they slid
backwards a bit – and we all know what happens on the slippery
slope.
Diehard Sabbath fans will still get some kicks checking this one
out as it nears 25 years on the market. But
Sabotage, while definitely not Sabbath’s worst work, is also
not their best.