At first I thought, “Hmmm, Romilar slugs braying out an unerring barrage of gloomytoons symphoniously heralding in 1984 with enough noise and annihilability to tweak the consciousness of the long dead...”, but that really didn’t sufficiently describe what goes on during the course of these eight sides of unabashed metalunacy. What? Will the metaphor fail at last? Has metal actually gone and exceeded the boundaries of the metaphor? Is this possible? Will Johnny really ever be good? Will...never mind.
Maybe. Because after closely listening to these “live” sides and drunkenly culling out all the juicy metaphors to use in a review I somehow find them all lacking in...wait a minute, I’ll show you what I mean:
Metalmaniacally speaking, both of these records fuse together nicely and form a huge cloud of noise that would satisfy, but not wholly satiate, because we all know that the true secret of metalunacy is that it can never be loud enough, long enough, or crazed enough. Just think of it, 8 sides of brain ravaging torpor, eight sides of sonic-shivs stabbing directly into the heart of darkness, VIII sides that could easily soundtrack a severe head cold, ten minus two sides of the most unquestionably pure and contradictory metal available today.
Beginning with Ozzy (that Preemie of Paunchy Geekery) Osbourne and Speak Of The Devil, the metalphrenia begins to rattle about—pleasingly, invitingly—through the pipage of my mind. Like, I like Black Sabbath with Ozzy and I like Ozzy without Black Sabbath and the jury’s still out on Black Sabbath without Ozzy, but each of these sets has just enough to make ’em both pleasuredomes of chaos; both are suitable for gnawing. Yet, without a single reservation, I have to say that Speak Of The Devil wins this battle of the bands teeth down.
After all, Ozzy is the Voice of the Void, the Landlord of Loud and the unimpeachable Master of Reality. His singing, antics and sense of the metal psyche have gone unchallenged since the first Sabbath album and are probably unchallengeable. His was the voice that took us through the Age of Syrup ’n’ Gloom, the decade of Downers ’n’ Gloom and the era of the Big Shoulder Shrug ’n’ Gloom. And his industrial strength attitude virtually created the classic sheath of metal from which all others have sprung forth.
Speak Of The Devil gives us an older Ozzy, but an Ozzy that’s strokin’ the symptoms of the universe with more intensity than ever before. When he kicks into high gear on songs like “Paranoid” and “Symptoms Of The Universe,” he just can’t be denied. And when his good, fundamental power trio mates egg him onwards, as on “Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath” and “War Pigs,” he truly excels. It should be noted here that guitarist Brad Davis is about as close to Tony Iommi, chop for chop, as any metal guitarist to come along in some time. (The fundamental difference between the two being that Davis is raw, and obviously enjoying what he’s doing, while Iommi is polished and used to what he’s doing.)
Naturally, the best song on Speak Of The Devil is “Iron Man,” perhaps the quintessential metal song. This is metalunacy at its quirky, contradictory best. And it needs Ozzy Osbourne to fuel it into attics of annihilation.
Which brings us to Black Sabbath’s Live Evil. Black Sabbath without Ozzy Osbourne is like despair without alcohol; doom without joy; AC without DC; Sonny without Cher. Ronny Dio is a good front man, but he’s too “pro,” which is the main criticism for this whole record—it’s just too damn slick. Yet, somehow, I can’t help but like it, because it is Black Sabbath; and it is Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler and Vinnie Appice, as good a bunch of metal mavens as there are, and when they do their post-Ozzy material, they’re good. It’s just that when they get into the battle of the bands thing doing the same songs Ozzy does, it’s no contest.
Case in point, their edition of “Iron Man.” Now only the true metalunatic will understand this—when those opening guitar screeches and moans lead into the grim exclamation of “I am Iron Man,” an involuntary shudder goes up the spine, like someone walking on your grave or long fingernails running down a blackboard. In order for the song to work correctly, it must invoke these sensations. Ozzy’s does, Black Sabbath’s doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.
“Heaven and Hell” and “Sign of the Southern Cross” didn’t really work on the studio album, and on Live Evil they come across like the Allman Brothers on belladonna, which for some people might be okay. Maybe even more than okay, actually.
Well, I could go on forever (you mean this ain’t forever? —Ed.) so for now: “The extermination tourist lounges casually in a shattered doorway, adjusts his leathermask, snaps his fingers in a cold blood travel trance and fades ever so slowly into the shadows...”
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