Mob Rules - Black Sabbath

...hors d'erve for the blistering Mob Rules - one of the hardest, full on rock and roll sonic attacks I have ever heard. I swear that this can peel paint off of your walls. Like the wheel rolling that Dio sings about in the lyric, this is a fantastically out of control HM song metaphorically tumbling down a hill.

Country Girl is a simple riff, but it works to full effect - less being more. "don't ever fall in love with a country ...
...didn't do me no harm. As rock songs go this is just about perfect, not a note wasted. And it was the song that got me into this band too.

Slipping Away is the one track where everyone gets a solo, stop start and to be honest a bit of a downer, before we are back in familiar territory with Falling Off The Edge of The World. Another slow start before, you guessed it, another 100mph monster riff takes us over that edge.

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Carrying on from Heaven & Hell, the 1980 album that saw them back in the spotlight with Dio now fronting the famous down-toned metal monster, Sabbath travelled to LA in 1981 to record this. Ozzy had his Blizzard of Oz on tour at the time, so how were his old band going to respond? Some worried that RJD's songwriting, in his Rainbow days had consisted of the old sword and sorcery so beloved of 70's metal bands, and would theoretically be carried on to his new outfit, but as with H&H it is not a factor here.

Along with Dio, the line up remains: Tony Iommi (guitars), Geezer Butler (bass) and Vinnie Appice (drums), filling in for Bill Ward who sadly found himself back in rehab. Ace producer Martin Birch (Purple, Maiden, Rainbow etc) fiddles with the knobs.

Opening title Turn Up The Night leaves no-one in any doubt that this now Tony Iommi's band. The exuberant yet commercial sound had the label Vertigo put it out as a single - it reached no 37 in the charts.

Listen to Voodoo and Sign Of The Southern Cross, both with the trademark huge slabs of guitar that was to show the up and coming Bay Area thrashers how to do it - Southern Cross even has a (deliberate?) reference to RJD's old band - "There's a rainbow, see it shiver"! A classic light/heavy track this, all slow and acoustic at first then the 1000 ton guitar line that we all know and love from Iommi. "Cross" weighs in at over seven minutes but Sabbath always had that ability to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out a song leaving the great bassist Geezer to fill in the missing parts, and he does that to perfection here.

The atmospheric E5150 follows, all keyboards and bass - the band would use this as the opener for their upcoming tour. Which served as a hors d'erve for the blistering Mob Rules - one of the hardest, full on rock and roll sonic attacks I have ever heard. I swear that this can peel paint off of your walls. Like the wheel rolling that Dio sings about in the lyric, this is a fantastically out of control HM song metaphorically tumbling down a hill.

Country Girl is a simple riff, but it works to full effect - less being more. "don't ever fall in love with a country girl", sings RJD, well I did and it didn't do me no harm. As rock songs go this is just about perfect, not a note wasted. And it was the song that got me into this band too.

Slipping Away is the one track where everyone gets a solo, stop start and to be honest a bit of a downer, before we are back in familiar territory with Falling Off The Edge of The World. Another slow start before, you guessed it, another 100mph monster riff takes us over that edge.

Over And Over ends this record and if it's seems a little out of place, being a slower-paced tune, perhaps thats not so bad. This is a sad little number with RJD singing about lost opportunties and all that stuff. Iommi gets to put down one of his ultimate solos and overall a great number.

Sadly it was to be mostly downhill from here on in. Ian Gillan replaced Dio on vocals for the ill-fated Born Again album, and a number of so-so releases followed through the years. Headless Cross from 1988 was a fine album though and is worth getting hold of.

Any self-respecting metal fan should be only too glad to get their hairy fists on a copy of this. Male or female. I've redone this review cos I don't think my first one did it justice. 

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