Log #94 - A Mighty Return

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.

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Log #93 - They Sold Their Souls For Rock 'N' Roll

Black Sabbath were really something else. They had a unique sound instantly recognisable. This sound was employed and developed over their first 6 albums from 1970 to 1975. This classic compilation We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll draws from these 6 albums. Two later albums featured singer Ozzy Osbourne following this compilation before the band sacked him and set off on a revolving door's worth of new members. Although they had their moments most notably on the Dio fronted Heaven and Hell album they had essentially become another metal band having lost a lot of their uniqueness - a uniqueness that was pleasingly reignited on their recent reunion album 13.

This compilation in it's own right is an excellent record. However the first 6 albums are so strong that I would really prefer readers to just buy the original albums. We Sold Our Soul For Rock N Roll draws heavily on the first two albums meaning their third (and their best in my opinion) is neglected with only two tracks - luckily one of them being Children Of The Grave which I think was the first Sabbath track I ever heard and one that stopped me in my tracks with a "Wow, what is this?!"

For new listeners see if it has the same effect on you:

Sadly there is also only one track from their fifth album the groundbreaking Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

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. Chris Rea - The Road To Hell
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Various - Rock Chronicles: The Seventies
6. Francois And The Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable

Last entry in the 6 way slot this week is a curious affair from little known band Francois and the Atlas Mountains. I know little about this band. I saw them at a festival years ago and was suitably impressed enough to buy their album which translates as Flood Plains.  Here you go >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A0n%C3%A7ois_%26_the_Atlas_Mountains

It would appear they are a Belgian/French/Bristol collaboration.

One of their songs reminds me of Imagine by John Lennon. Let me see if I can find it.

Actually more like Paris 1919 by John Cale or Belle and Sebastian.

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Log #12 - New Treasure Uncovered

Several times in my music listening life I've heard something for the first time which sounded like nothing else I had ever heard before. This happened with Can, Neil Young, David Sylvian, Stereolab, and Boards of Canada. I also remember getting a lift back from the North of England in a friend's car one evening and once again hearing something that sounded so different and original to my ears. The band was The Cocteau Twins and the albums we listened to on that long journey were Heaven or Las Vegas and Four Calendar Cafe. Those two fantastic albums are actually more produced and polished, and perhaps more accomplished actually than the earlier Treasure featured here which has more indie rock sensibilities typical of the era (1984). Not that there is anything very much typical about the Cocteau sound with Robin Guthrie's multi layered guitar effects and Elizabeth Frazer's ghostly vocals.

The Cocteau Twins are still the best by far at the 4AD ethereal dreamscape, thanks largely to the extraordinary voice of Liz Fraser. Somehow she's found a voice that falls completely outside 'Rock' or 'Pop'.

It's what we all looked like in the 80s

1. Arbouretum - The Gathering
2. Calexico - Garden Ruin
3. Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Ramsay Midwood - Shootout at the Ok Chinese Restaurant
6. Cocteau Twins - Treasure

Calexico hail from Tucson, Arizona, and their music has a sense of place with their authentic Americana and Mariachi sound. I first heard them through a tremendous instrumental featured on a free CD I picked up with an Uncut magazine. The CD entitled Sounds of the New West was responsible for introducing me to many great Americana (or Alt-Country as it was termed in 1998) artists including The Handsome Family, Will Oldham, Vic Chesnutt and Lambchop.

Probably the greatest free CD ever given away with a magazine

Garden Ruin is actually a bit more mainstream than their earlier acclaimed albums Black Light, Feast of Wire, and Hot Rail and has been criticised by some die hard fans as such, but I still like it. I've chosen Lucky Dime for the playlist which has a lovely feel good vibe which really reminds me of a classic old tune but I can't decide if this is Santana's Black Magic Woman or Evil Ways or something by the Kinks, or is it the Beatles? I hope it comes to me and if it does I'll report back here later! This track isn't really typical Calexico and I wouldn't have recognised it as them without knowing, but as such indicates the tone of this album.

With such an "art" band as Roxy Music it is very easy to overlook the music and focus on their image as I did in Log #11. However after several more plays of For Your Pleasure, which is the only one of their albums I have, I'm realising they were actually good musicians and produced some excellent and original rock music which stands up well against many of their more revered contemporaries.

Really can't say I thought much of the Bon Iver album - the first I've heard from him. Very earnest navel gazing with an annoyingly high pitched voice. Maybe it's a grower if life isn't too short. His latest is one of the Best Albums of 2016 in our local Resident Records review apparently.

The Ramsay Midwood album was a favourite of tiny local pub, The Greys, which used to play it a lot a few year's back when it was regularly hosting many Americana and Roots bands. Without being too familiar with the individual tracks as yet, they all sound indistinguishable from each other but they also say that about Neil Young so it's not necessarily a bad thing at all.

Neil Young only has one solo, but it sure is a good one.

And we'll leave it there with Arbouretum who are a reincarnation of Crazy Horse if I've ever heard one!

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