Never Say Die - Black Sabbath

Hellz yeah! \m/

Good evening Legions,

As I was updating myself about the recent occurrences within the world of Metal, I stumbled upon an interesting analysis, done by Tom from Terrorizer, about the upcoming return of the legendary Black Sabbath. Some of the questions discussed by him include:

Will this BS (Black Sabbath, that is) be an updated version of Heaven and Hell, with Ozzy?

If so, 

Do we really care? 

Or , 

Are we willing to compromise for the sake of having them back for good?

Will they be too rusty to play live?

If so,

What do we do?

What about the upcoming album? 

No pressure, right?

Either way, I will let you come up with your own conclusions.

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Never  say die - Black Sabbath

By Tom from Terrorizer

Will the Black Sabbath reunion end up being heaven or hell, and does it matter? We discuss.

So, the dust is beginning to settle on the Black Sabbath reunion. They're back, love it, like it, loathe it or not give a frozen fuck (I had never heard the expression frozen fuck but from now on I will be on a never-ending quest to use it - MM) about it. They're headlining Download and doing a new album (amongst other things). But will the founders of heavy metal be heaven or hell? Will they master reality or sabotage their legacy? Will I run out of shitty Sabbath-related puns by the end of this post? [Oh we hope so...- Ed]

Broadly, there are two entirely separate issues here. The first - will Sabbath be any good live? - should be a no-brainer up there with "do heavy metal fans like beer?" and "is 'Diabolus In Musica' a festering sack of shit that should be listened to by no one with ears and even the vaguest vestige of sanity or taste' ?". It's Black fucking Sabbath, ladies and gentleman.

Is there really anyone that doesn't want to see this again?

It's an occasionally overlooked point that this whole heavy metal malarkey that those now-legendary musicians invented probably wouldn't have taken off the same way - if at all - if Sabbath hadn't been stupendous. They may be revered as pioneers, but the "pioneer" bit is not a slightly backhanded compliment in the way that it sometimes is with other genre progenitors. "They did it before anyone" is not a sentence with a pregnant pause implying "...but someone else had to come along and perfect it" in this case. Black Sabbath did what they did perfectly (Amen to that - MM).

Those tunes haven't got worse in the act's absence. The reality is with this band is that they could play the first five albums in their entirety, back to back, and wouldn't leave an obvious place to run to the bar or the bog. More relevant, we know Tony and Geezer are in superb live form from their outings with Heaven & Hell (RIP, Ronnie - we still miss you), and Ozzy's in a better state vocally than he's been recently - not that it really matters, as the crowd are likely to be roaring the songs back at the band so loudly any bum notes or wrong words will be inaudible. Bill Ward's form is a bit of an unknown, but let's have some faith that he's still got it. Over and above all this, the band appear outwardly to be happy together, which should avoid any System Of A Down-esque looking-they-hate-each-other cringe-induction.

In short, their headline show at Download should fucking rule, whether you've seen them before or not - and, if we're honest, for a generation of metal fans that's probably "not".

This is what Tony and Geezer did last...

Another matter entirely is the prospect of a new album. The form guide leaves a fairly large margin for error. 'The Devil You Know' is killer, but in part that's down to Dio's astounding voice. 'Scream' was good, but there were precisely no songs you'd ditch 'Electric Funeral' or 'Hole In The Sky' from a live set to make way for. In reality, we don't have a fucking clue what will happen next - they haven't done an album together for nearly 34 years. Putting that into context, this month's cover star Shagrath was one year old at the time, Motorhead only had the one record out, black, death and thrash didn't exist yet and Dave Mustaine hadn't started any feuds yet.

...and this is what Ozzy did. Draw your own conclusions.

The album could end up being anything from Sabbath's 'Cold Lake' to their finest hour (admittedly unlikely, but possible) and everything in between. But when you get right down to it, that's not really the point.

The point is that this is likely to be the final chapter of heavy metal's first band, and one of its very finest. It should be great, but even if it isn't, at the very least it's a momentous set of events. Bring your cameras.

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-Stay Metal- 

MM Dre-dnklschwrz MMXI