LISTEN TO IT #81: LUCKY 13

Odds are you know Black Sabbath have a new album out.

This is one of those studio reunions that people have been talking about for over a decade: the original Black Sabbath line-up of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. And it took Rick Rubin – who else? – to finally make it happen.

Well, mostly. You know by now that Bill Ward couldn’t participate due to a combination of legal issues and Tony Iommi’s sense of urgency spurred on by his lymphoma diagnosis. There’s also been talk from Ozzy on Ward’s ability (or otherwise) to play on the subsequent tour to support the album.

So the new album, 13, is three for four on Original Line-Up, with Rage Against The Machine’s Brad Wilk subbing on the drum kit. And in some ways, it shows. Wilk is a good drummer and can do Heavy, but Ward’s jazz influence was as integral to the band’s original sound as Iommi’s diabolus chords. So the result is not exactly the “just pretend yr following up yr debut album” return to basics that Rubin had in mind.

But it’s pretty close. The absence of Ward is noticeable, but only if yr intimately familiar with their old stuff besides Paranoid, and not to the point of derailing the whole project. Iommi’s riffage is as heavy as you like, Butler holds up the bottom end admirably, and Ozzy still sounds like Ozzy, although – due to an inability to reverse time – I do find myself thinking I’m listening to the new Ozzy solo album at times.

That can’t be helped. Neither can the fact that most of the songs will always be compared to their classic work and inevitably fall short. Indeed, given Ward’s absence, all the online worrying from fans that Rubin would ruin Sabbath forever, as well as the fact that reunion albums in general have a patchy track record, any praise the album garnered was almost always going to include the qualifier “under the circumstances”.

Which is a shame because this is actually a pretty good Sabbath album on its own merits. Sometimes they do kind of follow the template a little too closely and too often (slow heavy part/faster swinging heavy part/solo solo solo/slow heavy part again) to the point of having a “Planet Caravan” breather.

Still, when it works, it works wonders.

Listen.

"Black Sabbath - End of the Beginning" (Watch on YouTube)

The end of the beginning,

This is dF

I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT (DYNASTY EDITION)

Epic dream involving a dysfunctional family caught up in some kind of terrorist attack. They are driving along a highway in different cars. Suddenly a man runs up alongside one of the family cars holding a cardboard box. He throws it down next to the car, and the box explodes, flipping the car and causing a major pile-up. 

There is some question afterwards as to what really happened, as cell-phone footage of the incident shows the man riding a motorcycle, not running on foot. At first, authorities assume it’s a random attack, but further investigation reveals the family is rich and very well connected, and they hate each other’s guts. One woman in particular, a sister of the woman in the car that was blown up, is trying to get something from the family – something locked in the ballroom in the mansion – and will go to extremes to get her way.

This becomes evident after she throws a lavish party at the mansion, invites the media (including me), and then locks all the bathrooms. She refuses to open them until the ballroom door is unsealed. I am annoyed by this, and tell her I’ll go pee on her lawn. “Great!” she shoots back, “I’ll join you!”

And then I woke up.

Family feud,

This is dF