BLACK SABBATH - SABOTAGE

'Tell me people, am I going insane?'

Released on July 28th 1975, Sabotage is Black Sabbath's 6th studio album. Sometimes overlooked and underrated after Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, it is possibly their last great Ozzy fronted release. Recorded in Morgan Studios, London through the spring of 1975, it carried on the Prog tinged experimentation of SBS, with the band taking their time to embellish the sound and use the studio as much as possible.

Looking back Ozzy in particular was frustrated with the elongated recording and writing process, that each subsequent album was taking longer and longer to complete after the one day in the studio recorded virtully live approach of their debut. Tony Iommi too was concerned that it needed to be heavier than SBS, which he considered to be 'not a rock album, really'.

Having said all that, Sabotage includes one of their most copied, influential and powerful riffs. Symptom Of The Universe bursts out of the speakers after the opening Hole In The Sky and acoustic interlude Don't Start (Too Late). Even with the lighter sections, the riff is a killer and it instantly became a live favourites. After that, we get for me the perfect Metal/Prog hybrid that is Megalomania. A long brooding number that explodes with a series of angry riffs before swirling into the distance. One of my all time fave Sabbath tunes.

The second side is lighter, but does include Supertzar, a grandiose chunk of neo-classical metal complete with the London Philharmonic Choir. Instrumental and bombastic, it was destined to be the intro tape for many a tour, and a very effective one at that.

The single Am I Going Insane is typical of the throwaway ideas they were trying at the time, and closing the elpee is The Writ, an angry attack at the management that had ripped them off for millions, unusually featuring Ozzy's lyrics too.

And the sleeve didn't help. The idea itself is fine, but ever since they've been questioned and ribbed over their wardrobe. And rightly so. Like the album itself, there's an air of it'll have to do about it. Shame, because for me it's a great record that stands up to this day to repeated plays and has some fine moments. But you can tell the tiredness and anger, the frustration. Sadly it went down from there, not up. There is enough in it for me to stand alone as a classic Black Sabbath album. Go on, give it a spin now....