Reunion

Though it was conceived as a mere cash-in for the long-awaited return of the original Black Sabbath, 1998's Reunion is as close to an official live album as the band has had in their historic 30-year career. 1980's Live at Last was released without their permission, and 1982's Live Evil featured then-singer Ronnie James Dio. With this in mind, the band must be commended on the excellent quality of the recordings, which include their most enduring classics ("War Pigs," "Paranoid," "Iron Man"), as well as a few surprises ("Dirty Women," "Behind the Wall of Sleep"), and were culled from a series of concerts in their native Birmingham in December 1997. The real key to this album, however, is the band's ability to avoid the most common pitfall of live recordings: speeding up the songs. This patience is crucial, since such Sabbath staples as "Sweet Leaf," "Black Sabbath," and "Snowblind" owe much of their unique personality and somber atmospherics to the band's trademark "snail's pace." "Children of the Grave" proves itself once again as one of the band's most dependable live favorites, and the massive riffs of "Into the Void" are simply timeless. The two brand new studio tracks are another treat for longtime fans, and while "Selling My Soul" is rather mundane, "Psycho Man" is absolutely incredible thanks to its slow intro and raging final riff.

Dehumanizer

Sabbath and Dio were dealing with a dwindling fan base, unsuccessful albums, and a longstanding creative rut when they decided to reunite the Mob Rules lineup. In a perfect world, they would have created a monster of an album and shot back into the limelight with a vengeance. But with ten-year-old internal tensions still gnawing away at the band, they hastily created Dehumanizer, a weird side note in their long history. Ronnie James Dio delivers his strongest performance since the early '80s, and hearing Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi play together after nine years is inspiring. But they cannot seem to overcome the challenge of crafting classic Sabbath material, and it is this issue that haunts the recording . Dehumanizer isn't terrible, but it should have been the sign for the band to call it a career. Instead, Dio split when he refused to open shows for Ozzy Osbourne's retirement tour; they used Judas Priest singer Rob Halford for a few shows, and then everyone left but Iommi and Butler, who stayed on to paste a new lineup back together for two more albums.

TYR

Gothic in approach, but crushing guitar riffs galore, TYR followed Black Sabbath's previous return to the spotlight by less than a year. Again leaning heavily on the darker side of life, or perhaps, death, TYR is a set of tunes loosely based around the Norse tales of Odin and the gods of war. "Valhalla" is unlike anything the old Sabbath tried, yet still sounds familiar. "The Sabbath Stones" mix myth with metal in a crushing display of musical synthesis. With TYR, Black Sabbath sound as serious as they can be.

Headless Cross

By the late '80s everyone had pretty much given up on Black Sabbath...and why not? After all, guitarist Tony Iommi was the only remaining original member, and the band had seen an outrageous number of musicians -- particularly lead singers -- crash through its battered ranks since Ozzy Osbourne's late-'70s sacking. So it was actually quite a shock to anyone still paying attention when no-name vocalist outperformed a string of higher-profile predecessors with his contributions to Sabbath's unexpected 1987 return to form, The Eternal Idol, then pulled off the even more remarkable feat of being invited back for a second go-round via 1989's equally satisfying Headless Cross. Arguably the finest Sabbath album sans Ozzy or Dio, Headless Cross also featured one of Black Sabbath's most formidable lineups ever: matching the two Tonys with veteran bassist Neil Murrey (Whitesnake, Gary Moore, etc.) and experienced journeyman Cozy Powell (too many associations to list) -- one of the few drummers in possession of an instantly recognizable sound. for those wise enough to appreciate Black Sabbath's discography beyond the Osbourne and Dio essentials, there can be no better place to start than Headless Cross or its worthy predecessor, The Eternal Idol.

The Eternal Idol

After years of playing a dispiriting game of musical chairs with various lead singers during the early '80s, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, finally stumbled upon a dependable frontman when he admitted relative unknown Tony Martin into the fold, thereby initiating the original heavy metal band's long awaited return to respectability -- if not chart-topping success. Martin joined the oft-interrupted sessions for what would become 1987's The Eternal Idol album already in progress, stepping in for an unreliable Ray Gillien when the latter moved on to Jake E. Lee's Badlands, and helping Iommi rescue an astonishingly solid long-player from the jaws of complete and utter chaos. As it turned out, Martin's powerful, muscular voice -- though bearing more than a passing resemblance to former singer Ronnie James Dio -- was ultimately the perfect foil for full-bodied heavy metal anthems like "Hard Life to Love," "Glory Ride," and "Born to Lose".

Seventh Star

An often misunderstood and underrated album, 1986's Seventh Star was never intended to be a Black Sabbath release, as the band had effectively broken up following its disastrous 1984 tour in support of career low point Born Again. Instead, Seventh Star was conceived as guitarist Tony Iommi's first solo project, and it was only record company pressure that forced him to resurrect his longtime band's moniker at the last moment. With this in mind, one can better appreciate both the record's more blues-based, often un-Sabbath-like songwriting and the contributions made by journeyman singer Glenn Hughes.

Born Again

The idea sure looked good on paper, but when former Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillian joined Black Sabbath for 1983's dreadful Born Again album, the grim reality was that Gillian's bluesy vocal style and oftentimes humorous lyrics were completely incompatible with the lords of doom and gloom. Widely deemed the band's creative nadir, Born Again's atrocious "production" leaves one with the distinct impression that, in a misguided attempt to record the heaviest album ever, Black Sabbath came away with the muddiest instead. Among the smoking ruins that pass for its songs, one might find it possible to appreciate Gillian's trademarked double entendres on "Disturbing the Priest," pick out a decent melody within the messy title track, and get down to some mercifully straightforward headbanging with "Digital Bitch" and the album's lone classic, "Trashed." Black Sabbath's greatly anticipated association with Ian Gillian had gone down as one of heavy metal's all-time greatest disappointments, and nearly killed the genre's founding fathers in the process.

Live Evil

Black Sabbath's first attempt at an official live album, 1982's Live Evil was also the straw that broke the camel's back -- or rather, split the legendary group's second lineup right down the middle. Band tensions were already at an all-time high leading into the album's mixing sessions, but when founding members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler accused singer Ronnie James Dio of sneaking into the studio to raise the volume on his vocal tracks, the pint-sized warbler decided he'd had enough and, guilty or not, departed to pursue a solo career, taking drummer Vinnie Appice with him. Fateful accusations aside, Live Evil does benefit from a crystal clear, in-your-face sound, and by showcasing even amounts of both Ozzy and Dio material, effectively documents Black Sabbath's renascent tours of the early '80s. Dio certainly has the vocal chops, if not the same everyman charm, to handle the Osbourne classics, but his incessant banter between (and during!) songs sometimes verges on the unbearable.

Mob Rules

1981's Mob Rules was the second Black Sabbath album to feature vertically challenged singer , Ronnie James Dio whose powerful pipes and Dungeons and Dragons lyrics initially seemed like the perfect replacement for the recently departed and wildly popular Ozzy Osbourne. In fact, all the ingredients which had made their first outing, Heaven and Hell, so successful are re-utilized on this album, including legendary metal producer Martin Birch and supporting keyboard player Geoff Nichols. And while it lacks some of its predecessor's inspired songwriting, Mob Rules was given a much punchier, in-your-face mix by Birch. Over the next year, the shit would hit the fan for Black Sabbath, and Dio's exit would mark Mob Rules as the last widely respected studio release of the band's storied career.

Heaven and Hell

Many had left Black Sabbath for dead at the dawn of the '80s, and with good reason -- the band's last couple of albums albums were not even close to their early classics, and original singer Ozzy Osbourne had just split from the band. But Sabbath had found a worthy replacement in former Elf and Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio, and bounced back to issue their finest album since the early '70s, 1980's Heaven and Hell. The band sounds reborn and re-energized throughout. Several tracks easily rank among Sabbath's all-time best, such as the vicious album opener, "Neon Knights," the moody, mid-paced epic "Children of the Sea," and the title track, which features one of Tony Iommi's best guitar riffs. With Heaven and Hell, Black Sabbath was obviously back in business. Unfortunately, the Dio-led version of the band would only record one more studio album before splitting up (although Dio would return briefly in the early '90s). One of Sabbath's finest records.

Greatest Hits

Black Sabbath's best-of discs continue to proliferate at alarming speed, and Castle's particular version is hopelessly outdated. The track listing is decent enough, but falls well short of a full CD's running time (it was assembled in the vinyl era) and is transferred straight from the master tapes, without any attention to mastering them for CD-quality sound. Hence, it's utterly avoidable. If you really only need to glimpse Sabbath, We Sold Our Soul for Rock'n'Roll is still the place to go.

Live at Last

Surprisingly, Warner Brothers never released a live Black Sabbath album in the U.S. during Ozzy Osbourne's years with the band. It wasn't until 1982's double-LP Live Evil (which featured Ronnie James instead of the Oz) that Warner finally put out a live Sabbath album in the U.S. Released in England in 1980, Live at Last is a single LP that was recorded before Osbourne's departure but didn't come out until after he had left. Unfortunately, this LP's liner notes are problematic. Nems lets you know that Live at Last was recorded in Manchester, England, and at the Rainbow in London, but no recording dates are given. And Osbourne's first name is misspelled "Ossie." As for the performances, the Osbourne/Geezer Butler/Tony Iommi/Bill Ward lineup of Sabbath is in decent form on such menacing favorites as "War Pigs," "Paranoid," "Sweet Leaf," and "Children of the Grave." Live at Last, which made it to American stores as an import, is by no means definitive -- how could it be without "Iron Man"? But even so, fans were glad to finally have a live recording of Osbourne-era Sabbath that wasn't a bootleg.

Never Say Die!

After going their separate ways for a brief period following the emotionally taxing and drug-infested Technical Ecstasy tour, Black Sabbath and singer Ozzy Osbourne reconciled long enough to record 1978's Never Say Die! -- an album whose varied but often unfocused songs perfectly reflected the band's uneasy state of affairs at the time. Even the surprisingly energetic title track, which seemed to kick things off with a promising bang, couldn't entirely mask the group's fading enthusiasm just beneath the surface after a few repeated listens. Never Say Die!'s incoherent musical aggregate in fact betrayed the harsh reality that it was indeed too late. So even though those same die-hard Sabbath fans and completists will likely find some redeeming value in Never Say Die! after all these years, the original lineup's final gasp will hold little interest to the average heavy metal fan.

Technical Ecstasy

Black Sabbath was unraveling at an alarming rate around the time of their second to last album with original singer Ozzy Osbourne 1976's Technical Ecstasy. The band was getting further and further from their original musical path, as they began experimenting with their trademark sludge-metal sound. While it was not as off-the-mark as their final album with Osbourne, 1978's Never Say Die, it was not on par with Sabbath's exceptional first six releases. The most popular song remains the album closer, "Dirty Women," which was revived during the band's highly successful reunion tour of the late '90s. Other standouts include the funky "All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" and the raging opener, "Back Street Kids." The melodic "It's Alright" turns out to be the album's biggest surprise -- it's one of drummer Bill Ward's few lead vocal spots with the band ( Guns N' Roses covered the unlikely track on their 1999 live set, Live Era 1987-1993).

We Sold Our Soul for Rock n' Roll

We Sold Our Soul for Rock n' Roll is a good single-disc collection of many -- but not all -- of Black Sabbath's best tracks from the Ozzy Osbourne era, drawing about half of its material from the group's first two albums, Black Sabbath and Pariniod. That makes it ideal for the fan who only wants one Black Sabbath disc, but those who want to dig deeper should be advised that all six LPs from the Osbourne period contain high-quality items not present here, especially the under-represented Master of Reality and Vol.4. Still, there's no quibbling with what is here.

Sabotage

Sabotage is the final release of Black Sabbath's legendary First Six, and it's also the least celebrated of the bunch, though most die-hard fans would consider it criminally underrated. The band continues further down the proto-prog metal road of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and this time around, the synthesizers feel more organically integrated into the arrangements. What's more, the song structures generally feel less conventional and more challenging.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

With 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath made a concerted effort to prove their remaining critics wrong by raising their creative stakes and dispensing unprecedented attention to the album's production standards, arrangements, and even the cover artwork. As a result, bold new efforts like the timeless title track and "A National Acrobat", and "Killing Yourself to Live" positively glistened with a newfound level of finesse and maturity, while remaining largely faithful, aesthetically speaking, to the band's signature compositional style. In fact, their sheer songwriting excellence may even have helped to ease the transition for suspicious older fans left yearning for the rough-hewn, brute strength that had made recent triumphs likeallof their previous albums such undeniable forces of nature. But thanks to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath's nearly flawless execution, even a more adventurous!