BLACK SABBATH: SABOTAGE (1975)
1) Hole In The Sky; 2) Don't
Start (Too Late); 3) Symptom Of The Universe; 4) Megalomania; 5) Thrill Of It
All; 6) Supertzar; 7) Am I Going Insane (Radio); 8) The Writ.
It is hardly an accident that the only song to
have endured in Sabbath's «typical» live set from this album was ʽSymptom Of
The Universeʼ. Others were tried out circa 1975-76, then quickly discarded and
forgotten; and, according to most sources, the band members have relatively few
kind words to say about the album themselves — they prefer to remember that
time as a period of personal chaos, druggy stupor, and just not a lot of fun
altogether. (Now Headless Cross — there was a time of much rejoicing and
happiness... 'nuff said).
Indeed, Sabotage
is anything but the «quintessential Black
Sabbath» album. Fans of ʽParanoidʼ, ʽIron Manʼ, and even ʽSabbath Bloody
Sabbathʼ, if they come here looking for more of the same, will inevitably run
away in disappointment — as perplexed at the band's musical direction as we all
would be in the band's taste in clothes (the front sleeve photo has made
history as one of the tackiest style demonstrations of «the Me Decade»).
Acoustic guitars are one thing, of course, and we'd had them for quite some
time already, but harpsichords? synthesizers? choir harmonies? tape
experiments? multi-part ten-minute epics? what is this, Selling Satan By The Pound?
Actually, no. Detractors of the album (fortunately,
there are not too many of them) usually complain that at this point, the band
got too heavily involved in «progressive» experimentation, lost its head in a
mix of artistic influences and illegal substances, and delivered something that
may have agreed with the spirit of the times, but was utterly «not Sabbath», an
attempt to tread on other people's turf with predictable stupidity instead of required
subtlety. My opinion is the direct opposite: I think that Sabotage is the most sincere and deeply personal album ever
recorded by the band, and that this is the reason why it can still be so
harrowing after all these years.
As great as those early classic albums were, it
is hard to deny that the band was putting on an act, and that even with all his
looniness, Ozzy did not think of himself as Lucifer or The Iron Man in his
everyday life. Personal matters did not really begin figuring in the band's output
until Vol. 4, and even then their
preoccupation with their own minds was still only occasional. But they still
continued growing as their own psychoanalysts, step by step, and by the time we
come to Sabotage, it was really happening.
There is one central theme here, running
through most of the songs: INSANITY. Ozzy, as he will be glad to tell you
himself, is mentally unstable from birth, and while the same cannot be said of
his pals, by the mid-1970s they were certainly living mad lives (and who
wasn't?). Intentional or not, madness, fantasies, and delusions are at the
heart of Sabotage as they were an
integral part of the band's life at the time — and the fact that these themes
coincided with a «trendy» desire to experiment in the studio is used by the
band to tremendous advantage. Naturally, they lack the «education» that it
would require to produce a Dark Side Of
The Moon, but they more than make up for it with sheer natural talent,
creative instinct, and, yes, a good dose of rock'n'roll passion (that one time where
they really have Floyd in a corner).
Funny enough, the album begins on a completely
unpretentious note: ʽHole In The Skyʼ is just a heavy rocker in the old
tradition — lumpy, bluesy, driven by a good, but unexceptional couple of riffs,
and only the lyrics, written by Geezer as an ever more sophisticated clump of
metaphors and allusions, betray the band's current obsession with their inner
psyche. That, and Ozzy's delivery, of course — he sings with such passion as if
he actually gets what those lines
mean: "The synonyms of all the things that I've said / Are just the
riddles that are built in my head". Heck, maybe he does get it, he just probably couldn't explain it in words, not
even if you threatened to enroll him in a Cambridge educational program.
It all begins at the end of the fourth minute,
when ʽHole In The Skyʼ is unexpectedly cut off in mid-riff (artsy!) and the short
acoustic interlude ʽDon't Startʼ announces the start of the «serious» part of
our program, as we slip into «experimental» mode and never let go. ʽSymptom Of
The Universeʼ begins fast and heavy, then, midway through, dives into moody
acoustic lite-jazz as Tony becomes José Feliciano for a change. Conversely, ʽMegalomaniaʼ
ends fast and heavy, but begins as a
dark psychedelic trip with ghostly musical overtones and time-warped vocals at
the start of each verse. ʽThrill Of It Allʼ is a fifty-fifty mix of «Satanic
Sabbath» with the all-together-now colorfully psychedelic atmosphere of Yellow Submarine. ʽSupertzarʼ (the title
alone is worth a grand) puts Iommi's metal guitar on top of Gregorian harmonies
from the London Philharmonic Choir... or was that vice versa? ʽAm I Going Insaneʼ
takes Mozart's / The Nice's ʽRondeauʼ as the foundation and turns it into a
synth-pop song with a catchy chorus, but no guitar. Finally, ʽThe Writʼ, an
anti-lawyer song of particular value to Ozzy because he wrote the lyrics himself,
goes from dark arena-rock to confessional harpsichord-driven baroque pop — and,
in the good old tradition of Abbey Road,
the album ends on a self-deflating note with the band banging away on a piano
and singing a joke tune (ʽBlow On A Jugʼ).
If you are yet to savor those crazy delights
and that paragraph seemed tempting to you, rest assured that the music actually
does match all that weirdness, and,
moreover, none of that weirdness seems particularly forced or senseless. Even
a track like ʽSupertzarʼ, probably the easiest target on here to shoot down for
«stupidity», works very well in the overall context — I suppose the band invented the title not
merely as a pun, but because the choir reminded them of «Russian church
singing», and where there's Russian church singing, there's also a sort of
«foolishness-for-Christ» association going on, and one thing ties to another
and suddenly Iommi's frantic guitar riffs, locked with those religious choral
harmonies, start making some sort of bizarre sense — perfectly put right in
front of ʽAm I Going Insaneʼ.
However, my own personal favorite here, and a
vote for most criminally underrated Sabbath song of all time (at least in that
the band has never tried resuscitating it live after the 1975-76 season), is
ʽMegalomaniaʼ. The song is yet another example of an odd lyrical/musical
mismatch — its two parts respectively deal with the self-realized deadly plight
of a satanic megalomaniac (Hitler?) and
the successful search for redemption ("Now I've found my happiness / From
the depths of sorrow"), but if anything, the second part of the song is
even gloomier and scarier than the first one: at least, Tony's major riff that
is driving it forward contains no hint at «redemption» or «happiness». One
totally ad hoc association that crossed my mind, for some reason, was Jesus Christ Superstar — there are some
moments here when ʽMegalomaniaʼ conveys the same «unredeemable darkness» feel
as ʽThe Death Of Judasʼ, with those atmospheric, ghostly, fleeting heavy chords
laid over the main melody. Thematically, though, the song probably has more in
common with Tommy... one thing is
for certain: this is as close as Black Sabbath ever came to writing their own «rock
opera», and something tells me that in 1975, they might have succeeded with it.
On the other hand, maybe it is just as well that the album was made without
such a strictly set purpose, and just came out naturally the way it did.
Fate would have it, though, that the chief
memory of Sabotage in the collective
mass conscience would have to be the main riff to ʽSymptom Of The Universeʼ —
the «first ever thrash metal riff», as it is now retrospectively featured in
encyclopaedias, even though the term certainly did not exist in 1975 (Tony
himself has humorously mixed it up in his memoirs, writing that it has been
called «the first progressive metal
riff»), and, furthermore, Pete Townshend was already playing something very
close to that same pattern as early as 1969-70 on some of the versions of
ʽYoung Man Bluesʼ. What matters, though, is that it is just a frickin' great
riff — simple, monstruous, powerful, and, while we are on the subject, more
memorable and more cool than 99% of the «real» thrash metal riffs I have heard.
And what is even cooler is how Ozzy manages to saddle it with his own speedy
vocal part — witchy lead singer ripping through space on a heavy metal riff
broom — and how they come up with the idea of crash-landing the song in an
otherworldly jazzy paradise at the end, instead of just fading the riff away as
many others would have done.
And yet I insist that the legend of ʽSymptom Of
The Universeʼ should not have overshadowed the overall punch of Sabotage as a thematic and
unpredictable album. As a whole, it certainly is «progressive metal», and a million billion times more impressive
than, say, the entire output of a band like Queensryche, simply because it
happened to be made by a score of talented people who refused to bind
themselves by silly genrist rules. Alas, pretty soon already Black Sabbath
would turn into a prime example of a band ruining itself by sticking to genrist
rules — like most other people, they paid attention to record sales, and with
sales of Sabotage failing to match
their previous successes, it was believed that «this is not what the fans want
of us» (which was at least partially true). But this is also what makes Sabotage so pricelessly unique in the
band's catalog, and, in fact, in Seventies' music in general — thumbs up
on all counts.
I still think Paranoid is their best record, but Sabotage is an extremely close second. The band was at their creative zenith and Ozzy delivers his best vocal performance in his career.
ReplyDeleteYup, Megalomania is my favourite track of this album too. The first three quasi-mellow minutes lack a riff. Iommi relies on atmosphere only and totally succeeds. Osbourne sings about his personal issues again, which results in his best delivery since Paranoid. Note how Iommi suddenly starts to boogie (when Osbourne sings "how I lied, went to hide") and gives it a sinister twist. The live versions don't cut it for me; on stage the band lacked the energy and ambition they had in 1970.
ReplyDelete"Sabotage" definitely marks the end of the golden age. It's their most progged out, spazzed out opus, equal parts classic Sabbath, Yes (there's a definite Rick Wakeman influence here for sure), and Queen (glossy production, millions of guitar overdubs a la Brian May). The year of its creation -1975- is telling, since that was more or less the last time classic rockers of the era were fully "relevant" to the youth of the world before the punk/new wave movement took over. However, I seriously doubt it was punk that influenced Sabbath to make an album like "Technical Ecstacy" in 1976. The decline in quality was more likely due to physical and creative exhaustion, not to mention rampant drug use and frustration over financial and management issues.
ReplyDeleteFunny to read Beatle references on a Sabbath album review, since I myself have been thinking lately that "classic" Sabbath did indeed have a certain Beatle-like quality to their sound.
ReplyDeleteThis record was the beginning of the end for the Sabs.
ReplyDeleteI think this album is absolutely fantastic. I had always seen the LP in record stores and had all the other Sabbath albums, but never bought or heard this one.
ReplyDeleteMy friend in college introduced me to it right after we had smoked a joint in his college dorm.
I stood straight up from my bean-bag chair after the first 2 licks of "Hole in the Sky" cranked up at full volume.
This album kicks ass from start to finish.
And yeah, I said "joint" ;)
Symptom of the Universe is my pick for favorite Sabbath song ever. Megalomania is also a great song and is a monster on the Past Lives album. They played a bit of an instrumental bit as part of the jam on the last tour.
ReplyDelete