Black Sabbath - Sabotage (1975)

Disclaimer: I will not be talking about this attrocious cover art... I like this black/red/white color scheme a lot but that's all. I'd rather pretend that this photo doesn't exist... The record's too good for this abomination to bring it down.

Continuing the spree of summer albums, I'd like to talk about my second favourite Sabbath record. I associate it with summer a lot, mainly for it's warm, vibrant sound palette. Sabotage is objectively one of the most interesting and memorable LPs from the Ozzy era, thanks tor it's very experimental nature (even stronger than in the previous release!) and the sound of Ozzy's vocals, which seem to be at its best here.

As with literally almost every album I like nowadays, my relationship with Sabotage began with me not thinking much about it. Most of the record just flew through my head generating little emotion. It was after a third listen about 3 years later that I started to vibe with this record. And oh boy do I vibe with it now...

At the first glance, this is just another hard rock album. The opening track - "Hole in the Sky" is a classic melodic riff based Sabbath banger like "Sweet Leaf" and "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath". But unlike those, this song seems to be a deep cut in the band's catalogue. I hardly ever see it mentioned anywhere, even though it's for sure one of my favorites from them. That's why I was immensly happy that Metallica picked this one as their cover for the "Back to the Beginning" performance. I LOVE how the song just cuts and skips midway thorugh the phrase (Nine Inch Nails style) and ends leading to the weird interlude of "Don't Start (Too Late)". It effectively communicates to the listener that this ain't a basic ass hard rock record...

Time to bring things up a notch. "Symptom of the Universe" seems to be the first ever true thrash metal song. The drumming is hard hitting and powerful and the crazy fills are sooo cool. Tony's chainsaw guitar is driving the song wildly, while retaining it's usual melodic sensibilities. The entire second half of the song is pure heaven. I don't even know how to describe it - there's literally nothing that sounds like this except maybe "Sabbra Caddabra" or "Fluff" from the previous record... And it sounded even more beautiful live, during this part's earlier performances as a part of extended SBS-era jam.

This colorful part features Ozzy at his absolutne peak, especially those early live versions with different lyrics. I always show this stuff to somebody who says that Ozzy couldn't sing. Well... he at least could in the mid 70s, and was an absolute master of exotic melodies and timbres. The next tune is "Megalomania", which is just about 15 seconds short of being a 10 minute track! How proggy of them. The song itself is similarly wonderful as the previous one, but is more repetetive and somewhat less inventive. There's that admittedly interesting doomy intro, with very King Gizzardy hammer-on part and emotional vocals, but then real "meat" of the song is the mighty riffy section that comes next. I really like the riff, even tho it's very repetetive and simple. Gotta appreciate Geezer's performance here, as I think that it elevates the song to the whole another level. He always founds neat musical ideal for guitar-bass interplay. And Bill plays the cowbell!!!! I've heard people say that this song drags and is boring and yeah, I could see that but it never gets uninteresting. All the little ideas like the affore-mentioned cowbell or low guitar bends in the background make for a really powerful sonic experience.

"The Thrill of it All" while being kinda fillery is still a nice song with the signature groove and vibrancy of this era of Sabbath. I believe they used some kind of "rattle instrument" during the verses (maracass? od maybe just a tambourine?), so the track sounds like a more down to earth version of "Looking For Today".

We're going back to the realm of crazy stuff with whatever the hell "Supertzar" is. I like what they tried to achieve and that they though that this is the thing that they wanted to put on the LP, but it's not my jam at all. I never listen to it on its own, but I guess it's intented. It's just an artsy interlude that shows the level of ambition and desire to experiment the band had at the time. I've never been a fan of classical choir stuff tho... After the most eerie song there, the tracklist takes a turn with "Am I Going Insane?" which was intended as a radio single, as indicated in the bracketed subtitle. It's "ok" I guess but it's not what I'm looking for on the LP.

The cinematic finisher "The Writ" goes back to the sharp and harmonious riffing with the edge of proggy arrangements. I like this song a lot and I always forget how nice and impressive it sounds. It's extremely interesting stuff. It's like "Spiral Architect" part 2! Ozzy's lamenting but strong voice in the grandiose sections is what makes this song for me, but the energetic beginning section and this pounding outro are equally as important in the big picture.

All in all, this is my 2nd favourite of theirs. I love this record a whole lot - mid 70s Sabbath just couldn't ever go wrong! The album kinda stands in the shadow of its predecessor, but it's admittedly hard to not compare these two releases. I love both of them tho! And just like the next logical step after SBS was to turn the quirkyness up, the next step after Sabotage is to slow things down a bit. They reached they creative peak here, so the next album is just bound to be different. But I'll talk about it another time...