Consuming the Tangible

I was familiar with the Tony Martin era of Black Sabbath, but “familiar” definitely isn’t the same as “knowledgeable” – at that point in my life my musical tastes had run to different, newer sounds: jazz, indie rock, and my discovery of 80s hardcore and punk. It didn’t help that by the time I went back to metal and Sabbath the Martin albums were nowhere to be found (to say nothing at the time of the sole offerings with Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes on vocals), so onward and upwards to other things. With the release of the Anno Domini: 1989-1995 box set not only did I now have a legit option for checking out these albums more closely, but with the added benefit of remastered audio and – in the case of one – a total remix. With that in mind it was finally time to dive headfirst into the hitherto “lost” era of Black Sabbath, so let’s dig into Headless Cross, Tyr, Cross Purposes, and Forbidden.

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Rights issues prevented Martin’s debut on 1987’s The Eternal Idol from appearing in the set, but for my money that album caters a bit too much to the hard rock AOR “metal” omnipresent at the time (the Whitesnake vibes are copious). Headless Cross, despite a production job that screams late 80s doesn’t have nearly that problem, and the kickoff title track with its mid-paced tempo and ambient keys has a direct line back to when the band was running wild with Ronnie James Dio at the helm. Martin’s voice is a revelation, mirroring Dio’s passion (sacrilege but who cares?) and instantly fitting in better than either Gillan or Hughes. If you just go by the first three tracks – “Headless Cross,” “Devil & Daughter” and “When Death Calls” you’d think the band never lost a step. In 1989 Ozzy was still somewhat mired in his glam phase (though Zack Wylde was helping to put some grit back in his step) and Dio was in between two mid-career highlights in Dream Evil and the super underrated Lock Up the Wolves. My point being that Black Sabbath should have been right in that mix based off those three tracks, particularly “When Death Calls” with that Brain May solo and those monster riffs that feel of a whole with Iommi’s best writing.

Sadly, the rest of the album doesn’t hold up the strength of those three killer tracks. “Kill in the Spirit World” despite some exotic descending riffage in the chorus sounds like every hard rock band in the late 80s with that simple, keep the beat bass line and the too present keyboards. Laurence Cottle is no Geezer Butler, and his bass playing does nothing to ground the tracks, which sound thin, brittle and dry despite the weird harsh reverb that covers everything, including the drums. A lot of folks love Cozy Powell, but his work here is perfunctory at best, and the production he co-handles with Iommi sinks a lot of Headless Cross. Both “Call of the Wild” and “Black Moon” have that fun-time blues rock feel that was exhausting at this point – no wonder grunge took the reins only a year or so later. The album closes with “Nightwing” which again features a great Tony Martin performance (he’s the MVP for me on this album) but even a great Iommi solo doesn’t save this or Headless Cross into a (yet another) song fade that leaves me underwhelmed. Great opening tracks, though.

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Things get better, darker, and heavier on 1990’s Tyr. “Anno Mundi” is a terrific opener, super heavy and epic. It’s still a far cry from the heyday of the band, but songs like this feel like a natural extension from the Dio-era. It’s weird to keep comparing Martin’s voice to RJD, but they’re similar in how they use their voice, although I don’t know if Dio would have ever thought to do those sweet layered choir parts on this track. “The Law Maker” is a terrific rocker, as good as anything Dio was putting out at the time. I wish I liked “Jerusalem” more – I probably would have loved it if I heard it as a 17-yeaar old in 1990 but now I can’t unhear the pedestrian keyboard work, and the too-obvious hooks in the chorus.

It doesn’t deter from how vicious “The Sabbath Stones” is, though. Holy crap this song. Heavy as anything else out at the time, this is the kind of Sabbath I want to hear. The production is better, too (or maybe the remaster is more successful), making the guitars huge, the bass – now handled by Neil Murray – suitably massive. And Iommi doesn’t sound like he’s trying to compete with the rest of the fretboard wizards. He’s just cranking out riff after monster riff, his solos back to what is needed to make the track soar.

There are a couple of sour notes that keep Tyr from being a complete winner in my book. The brief interlude “The Battle of Tyr” is a complete waste of a minute and nine seconds. Rather just move to “Odin’s Court” which is itself an interlude, albeit one with a phenomenal Martin vocal and acoustic guitars carrying some real nice Iommi licks before blending seamlessly into the crushing “Valhalla.” And then there’s “Feels Good to Me” which is so obviously a play for radio and Whitesnake success it’s a huge ear-sore on an otherwise fantastic metal record. Take those two tracks out and you have a tight, 33-minute killer Sabbath record.

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Maybe the biggest surprise to me is how much I like Cross Purposes, the 1994 album that finds Geezer Butler back in the fold along with Martin, who had left during the band’s brief re-dalliance with Dio for 92’s Dehumanizer. I love the gnarly riff that adorns opening track “I Witness” and JESUS hearing Butler’s bass back in the mix makes me realize you can say all you want about Iommi steering the ship, but without Butler there’s an irreplaceable gap. “Cross of Thorns” slows things down but doesn’t lose an ounce of the heaviness the band took with them from the previous albums. “Psychophobia” may take a little inspiration from grunge and bands like Soundgarden, but damn if that riff isn’t heavy as sin, and despite Martin doing a little sing-song speeding in the verses, the parts he actually sings are fantastic, and it tickles me to no end when he exclaims “It’s time to kiss the rainbow goodbye.”

The harmonized vocals on the dark and brooding dirge of “Virtual Death” is a great change-up for the band, successfully experimenting with new ways to be heavy. “Dying For Love” isn’t great but doesn’t grind things to a halt, either. As the requisite ballad I’ll take it over what other bands were doing. It being 1994 at least it doesn’t sound so indebted to the 80s. The rest of Cross Purposes really works, whether it’s doing a blues stomp on “Back to Eden” or echoing Zeppelin and “Kashmir” on “Cardinal Sin.” But we can’t leave the album without talking about the closing song “Evil Eye” which was co-written with Eddie Van Halen. The main riff is pure Sabbath, and as well as loving the song, it shows how EVH, despite having such a strong identifying style knew what made other bands work and catered his writing to them. Great closing track to an album that, to me, feels the most Sabbath of all the Martin albums.

I’m gonna credit that to Geezer being back. Cozy was out for this one, replaced by Bobby Rondinelli. I didn’t even notice.

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It’s not that Forbidden is a terrible album, per se. But it suffers from an identity crisis (all love to Ice-T and Ernie C./Body Count, but I don’t need rap or crossover in my Sabbath) and feels like a transitional album, Iommi looking to get back with Osbourne and raise the band’s profile back up. And so we get songs like “The Illusion of Power” with the Ice-T break and the sleaze rock vibe of “Get a Grip”. When you have a singer the caliber of Tony Martin, you waste him with this singspeak garbage. I can’t speak to how terrible the original Ernie C. mix was – legend has it was atrocious – but Iommi’s remix job at least makes the songs feel suitably big and balanced, and a few tracks carry that signature sound. “Shaking Off the Chains” is a good nasty one, with a few ripping riffs that show the band had some bite left.

“Guilty As Hell” also has that Sabbath vibe, but I am sick and tired of the rote writing that plagues “Sick and Tired.” The title track has more of that lackluster vocal delivery – Martin has said he wasn’t even sure if he was going to be on this album, and I can hear the ambiguity in his delivery. There’s no changing the fact that Forbidden remains arguably Black Sabbath’s worst album, but it’s not the abomination I was led to believe. Instead it’s just a truly un-inspired album.

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In the end I come away really impressed with Martin as a singer and as a vital part of the Sabbath machine (I HATE that the “official” site wipes everything out but the Ozzy stuff). Anno Domini aims to get the man back in the spotlight, and it’s a great package for folks who haven’t had a chance to hear this stuff. Sure you also get posters, a replica tour book and an okay insert that pulls together a bunch of quotes to outline this period of the band’s history, but the real gems are the albums themselves. Happy to include this chapter of the band in my life.

And for those counting, that makes one Dio album and four Tony Martin albums logged on this site. No Ozzy Sabbath yet, but I’m sure we’ll rectify that someday…