Born Again - Black Sabbath

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Born Again was a return to more traditional sounding Sabbath with its slow, grinding chords and atmospheric verses. The song's subject matter relates both to the band's being Born Again and the call for Satan to rescue an ailing career. "If you wanna be king for a day, just do as I say yeah". This is good stuff but from now on the album takes a real dive in quality, watch out! The awful Digital Bitch, with its well-worn ...
...the digital bitch, she's so rich, the digital bitch) is best skipped over and forgotten.

The down & dirty boogie of Hot Line is let down by some awful cut and paste studio work. Listen out for the change in timing 3/4 of the way in and see if you can spot the join! A clue: it shouldn't be too hard. Which is a shame as this is otherwise a great, if throwaway, listen. Leading the final selection, Keep It Warm, a slow-paced power(ish) ... more

What a strange album this is. After the departure of Ronnie James Dio following the excellent brace of LP's "Heaven & Hell" and "Headless Cross", remaining members Bill Ward, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi were left looking for their third singer in four years. It has since entered rock and roll legend that Ian Gillan was invited for a drink or seven with the rest of the band, ending up out of his face and agreeing to be their new vocalist, the subject of which forms the basis for the album's opening number "Trashed" with its mentions of bottles of gin and tequila, "inebriation" as Gillan puts it.

Why a strange album? Sabbath were a class act, Gillan a class singer. Shouldn't have been a problem. Somehow or other though it just never felt right, and that feeling is strengthened as you delve into this album. Gillan often breaks into his banshee wail, which worked very well with Deep Purple and his own band but does not contrast well with the hallmark Sabbath sound of the Iommi down-tuned guitar and thumping Butler bass, and to top it all the production is awful, all screaming guitar and Bill Ward's drumming waaaaaay back in the mix.

A tip to any budding producers out there: when recording down-tuned guitars, put the drums in the front of the mix. On this recording the drums are so far back that it's the audio equivalent of a marathon runner coming to the finish three hours after everyone else has packed up and gone home. Although in all honesty it's not only the production at fault; even the knob-twiddling talents of Butch Vig, Martin Birch and Steve Albini combined would struggle to polish what is a distinctly average set. One wonders if the state of inebreation that caused Gillan to join the band was continued during this LP's recording.

Trashed is a honest enough attempt to get the record off to a flier but both the song's sound (terrible) and execution (rather ham-fisted) let it down badly. Gillan sings about joining the band and a car crash he suffered previously. In sound and structure it's not a million miles from Deep Purple's album classic "Highway Star". Stonehenge is one of those Sabbath instrumentals that appear on their albums, very atmospheric and doomy.

Disturbing The Priest is a heavy, tongue in cheek sideways look at religion. Tony Iommi has previously stated his religious beliefs on record before and here we hear "do we mind disturbing the priest? No, not really", over a big backdrop. Possibly a little bit too long but interesting enough to hold your attention, before we get to The Dark, ANOTHER instrumental though just 45 seconds long. I can't really see the point of this.

Zero The Hero is a curious affair. Not quite sure what the lyrics refer to but the music is simply a looped riff with a little Iommi overlaid guitar. Previous writers have mentioned how close to this that the later Guns & Roses hit "Paradise City" resembles.

Born Again was a return to more traditional sounding Sabbath with its slow, grinding chords and atmospheric verses. The song's subject matter relates both to the band's being Born Again and the call for Satan to rescue an ailing career. "If you wanna be king for a day, just do as I say yeah". This is good stuff but from now on the album takes a real dive in quality, watch out! The awful Digital Bitch, with its well-worn Iommi guitar line and some terrible lyrics (keep away from the digital bitch, she's so rich, the digital bitch) is best skipped over and forgotten.

The down & dirty boogie of Hot Line is let down by some awful cut and paste studio work. Listen out for the change in timing 3/4 of the way in and see if you can spot the join! A clue: it shouldn't be too hard. Which is a shame as this is otherwise a great, if throwaway, listen. Leading the final selection, Keep It Warm, a slow-paced power(ish) ballad that builds up nicely towards a fast ending. Not a bad song, and the sentiment is certainly there - a plea to his woman to keep the home fires burning whilst the band is on tour - though a little, just a little bit too cringe-inducing.

Well there ya go. As mentioned a better production would help, but only by raising its rating from 2 stars to 3. Probably best left for the completists, or those who are just interested in a small slice of HM history. Who knows you could always impress your fellow peers / children / band members with jokes about "do you remember the time Gillan joined Black Sabbath?" Blank looks all round. Great, great cover though, a little baby devil with sharp nails and fanged teeth. 

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