The Batlord

Follow up post:

I mean, just listen to this bad mofo'ing song. Sort of like Heaven & Hell/Mob Rules, mixed with the heavier elements of 70s Sabbath, but with an all-new sense of anger. The songwriting might not be quite as on point, but Black Sabbath mostly make up for it by being so ****ing heavy at times. Iommi's riffs are just so totally on point on this album that it's unfair. If they'd really went for it, this could have been their Painkiller.




And that album they released as Heaven & Hell, The Devil You Know, put 13 to shame. Much the same sound as Dehumanizer, and with the same pluses/minuses. Dio also still sounded fantastic, which Ozzy... didn't. (It was also Dio's last studio album, which is metal history, right there.)





Another underrated part of Sabbath's career was the era with Tony Martin on vocals. I haven't listened to enough of those albums to be able to say how good it actually was, but at least Headless Cross is moderately fantastic.

Tony Martin comes across as a respectable Dio impersonator, with a bit of the rasp of David Coverdale from Whitesnake -- for better or worse -- and the band likewise does a surprisingly good job of imitating Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. It's a bit more dated than their previous work, but it's actually a solid album pretty much from beginning to end.

Some of their other Martin-era albums don't get as much respect, especially the two after he rejoined when Dio left after Dehumanizer, so perhaps the flak he gets is at least partially warranted, but he doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the likes of Blaze Bayley.

After Mob Rules, Sabbath seems have been written off as a relic, but I think they had enough moments of redemption to at least get more respect than Ozzy's post-Sabbath material, even if their successes were mainly capturing a bit of the Heaven and Hell magic. Just listen to this awesomeness...

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