Well the first thing to say straight off the bat is that 13 actually sounds like... well erm... Black Sabbath! For an old fan like me this is really exciting. Apparently producer Rick Rubin told the boys (men in their 60s at the time of this 2013 recording) to refer to their feted debut album and forget everything subsequent to that thus treating this project as if it was going to be their second album.
Does it succeed on that basis? Does it sound like a second album from a band that had just released their debut Black Sabbath a few months earlier? Well, it's close, remarkably so, considering the passage of time and the various traumas and false reunions that have affected the original band members since their original disbandment in 1978.
In fact there are some tracks on 13 that (almost too deliberately possibly?) sound remarkably similar to tracks from their debut album, certainly in structure. Ozzy Osbourne's voice sounds amazing. Tony Iommi's guitar riffs are thick and lush and there are some great distorted slow arpeggios. Geezer Butler's bass is pumping and high in the mix particularly on the blues stomp of Damaged Soul which even features harmonica (although there is some debate whether this is Osbourne or not).
It's almost there, it's almost a perfect comeback. There's no denying the chemistry of the original band members. But something isn't quite the same. Is it the drumming? Perfectly decent but maybe Brad Wilk doesn't quite have the special galloping swing of original member Bill Ward and is perhaps over complicating things with an over indulgence of fills and rolls. Or is it the production which almost inevitably is going to be different from 40 years ago? It's loud, deep and heavy, but sounds more modern and perfect in the vein of the metal wall of sound you get from the likes of Metallica, not quite as organic or edgy as the original Black Sabbath. Or does it sail too close to pantomime and parody sometimes particularly on the very Black Sabbath (the track) like opener End of the Beginning?:
Reanimation of your cyber sonic soul
Transforming time and space beyond control
Rise up and resist to be the master of your fate
Don't look back before today - tomorrow is too late
Then the final track finishes with the same tolling bell and thunder which announced Black Sabbath on their debut in 1970. A neat completion of the circle or a corny reference? *
Although there are suspicions that this record has been "enhanced" in the "modern way" to something beyond what this band could do live these days (particularly with the vocals one suspects) reports from the studio sessions maintain this was not the case and the tracks, although painstakingly mixed, were essentially laid down by the band as you hear them:
The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio, with only the vocal later being replaced, mostly because the lyrics were not finished yet. The rhythms and tempos are very tight, but people make the mistake of thinking that this means things were fixed. That does a disservice to these guys. They've been playing for 40 years, and what you hear on the album is the natural result of how they've developed over that time.
Engineer Andrew Scheps
The songs themselves only number eight ** which is a welcome old skool classic album number. But the tracks are multi-dimensional with changes of tempos and keys - a characteristic of many of the Sab's ambitious early numbers - yet continuity both within tracks and across the whole album is excellent.
The lyrics are spot on classic Sabbath too - all about life and death, your soul, religion and the universe (they of course went a bit "goblins and pixies" after Osbourne left which is odd really as Butler wrote most of the lyrics and remained a member of the band off and on long after Osbourne had gone but this indicated the influence of Osbourne's replacements which included most famously Ronnie James Dio).
Give me the wine, you keep the bread.
All in all this could easily be an album from 70s Sabbath - perhaps not their second or third but certainly a sixth or seventh and at least an equal of Technical Ecstacy or Never Say Die! in both quality and sound. Check out The Loner below, one of the more straight forward rockers on the album. Could this or could this not be from almost any one of Black Sabbath's 70s albums?
I'm impressed. It surpasses my expectations hugely and by virtue of Ozzy's voice alone, which in my opinion was irreplaceable, immediately launches itself into one of their best records in the context of their full career.
1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 1
2. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
3. Black Sabbath - 13
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Bjork - Homogenic
6. Francois And The Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable
Some context, and comparison, is possible by way of the order of my magazine this week with Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll compilation taking up the first two slots. This classic compilation covers tracks from their first 6 albums, for many their golden era which has never been equalled. It is true, where longevity is a very rare commodity, both then and especially now, to have produced 6 albums of such consistent quality was a remarkable achievement:
Black Sabbath
Paranoid
Master of Reality
Vol. 4
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sabotage
Even the two that followed although much less popular are excellent records:
Technical Ecstacy
Never Say Die!
Which is Your Favourite Black Sabbath Album?
The first 6 original Ozzy fronted Black Sabbath albums dominate fans' favourites. In fact I commissioned a Facebook survey which bore this out with the Ozzy years dominating the vote although Dio's Heaven and Hell does split the top 6.
Rather than one or two albums outstripping the rest, which you would often get with many bands, there is a wide range of support across all the first 6 albums (plus Heaven and Hell) which tends to confirm this consistency, but practically nothing post Dio (I expect there are some hidden gems amongst those too but probably not many of us have heard them).
The results out of 337 votes were:
1. PARANOID with 66 votes
2. BLACK SABBATH 59
3. VOL 4 42
4=. MASTER OF REALITY and SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH 41
6. HEAVEN AND HELL 31
7. SABOTAGE 27
8. MOB RULES 11
9. 13 8
10. NEVER SAY DIE 4
11. LIVE EVIL 3
12. TECHNICAL ECSTACY 2
13. BORN AGAIN 1
14. TYR 1
* "13" did not become Black Sabbath's final album - a live album followed the same year and then two "The End"s came out in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The first was an album length "EP" featuring outtakes from the "13" sessions with some live tracks from the album, and the second was a recording of the official final show which oddly didn't feature any tracks from "13".
** note there is a "deluxe" version of "13" with 3 bonus tracks.