Aerosmith couldn’t do it. Neither could Alice in Chains. Van Halen came the closest, but was stonewalled by Adele.
So leave it to Black Sabbath, the most unlikely of all the legendary bands and which had the longest layoff of all, finally brought rock ‘n’ roll back to the top of the charts. Sabbath’s “13,” the first full-length release with singer Ozzy Osbourne since 1978, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts this week.
Is it deserved? Absolutely. And this is the one reunion record Rock Music Menu went into with the most skepticism of all.
Original drummer Bill Ward sat out the sessions due to a contractual dispute, Osbourne’s cartoonish characterization in recent years has overshadowed his dark and dismal frontman persona, and guitarist Tony Iommi was in the midst of a serious battle with cancer throughout the recording sessions. Yet the band hasn’t sounded this hungry with the Ozzman at the helm since 1975’s “Sabotage,” arguably the last great record they did.
The absence of Ward is placated with Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk sitting behind the kit, and despite questionably and sometimes cheesy lyrics, “13” shows exactly why Black Sabbath is considered the forefathers of modern-day heavy metal.
Truth be told, the star of the proceedings is Iommi. He’s been the sole bearer of the Sabbath name since the beginning, waving the flag from the moment Osbourne was fired 35 years ago with often-times reckless abandon.
Singers, drummers, and bass players came and went with seemingly no clear direction, but Iommi soldiered on, driving the brand and band into the ground. “13” makes up for all of those missteps. The guitarist is a riff machine. “Dear Father,” “Age of Reason” and the single “God Is Dead?” feel like a ’70s timewarp, which is exactly what producer Rick Rubin was looking for when he took on the daunting task of resurrecting the (mostly) original lineup.
Ward’s ploddingly heavy stick work is missed greatly, but somehow this reconfigured Black Sabbath overcomes that, along with time, age, and trends. It’s unlikely that anything further will come of this reunion other than the requisite touring, though another record would be more than welcome. Then again, it was already a risky proposition to try and reclaim a legacy that has spanned generations and spawned an untold number of impressionable young musicians. If you’re going to put a punctuation mark on something with such a sinister sounding history, it might as well be a period than a comma.
To contact music columnist Michael Christopher, send an email to rockmusicmenu@hotmail.com. Also, check out his blog at www.delcotimes.com
