So now I'm going back to some heavy metal roots. I'm covering the third Black Sabbath album Master of Reality, the first song is titled Sweet Leaf so I think you get a hint as to what its mostly about. There are a couple of Black Sabbath classic on this album like the previously mentioned Sweet Leaf as well as Children of the Grave and Into the Void. There is classic Iommi guitar on this album featuring some insane solos. There are decent bass parts and good drum parts. The lyrics are often drug influenced and Ozzy's voice continues to be ominous powerful, and just overall the voice of heavy metal. The instrumental parts on this album are powerful and loud and don't need solos at times (like Sweat Leaf).
I can't see how somebody could not like the music on this album. There are some really powerful Iommi riffs such as in After Forever. Its hard to remember that before Iommi nobody played this loud or with this much distortion. As I mentioned earlier the riffs just dominate the music and actually eliminate the need for solos at times. When Iommi does solo you are simply blown away. While he may not be as high powered in his solos as his greatest contemporary Page he is still very strong and skilled playing some pretty insane stuff. A lot of his solos do still retain some blues feel though and if you're not into that you might not like them. Geezer Butler has a couple really cool bass lines, especially in After Forever. The drums of Bill ward are good but they are not as explosive or all powerful as the drum's of John Bonham one of his heaviest contemporaries. The guitar is so overpowering though that they can easily be called the heaviest band of the decade.
The lyrics are either dark or drug influenced. Some lyrics are sort of Satanic, for example in Children of the Grave with its dark and disturbing Ooooo part. After Forever is also a pretty dark song from a lyrical standpoint. Then there are tracks like Sweat Leaf, which are basically all about drugs. What I am trying to say is that the lyrics are classic Sabbath and that you can not question them. They are dirty dark and daring you to stand up to them. Ozzy of course can really belt it out and his voice really explodes in some of the songs, he can be seen as the voice of 70s metal if you discount Zeppelin. He is the dark and powerful set of vocal cords that make this album click.
I really like this album. This shows the classic Sabbath line up at their peak and they rock hard. These 4 guys made up the dark rebellion to the light and happy hippie movement that bands like Zeppelin supported. The songs are driven by a riffing guitar that then breaks into some incredible blues metal type solos. The other instruments are given their chances as well to shine and show off. Then the lyrics are dark and ominous, foreboding for the future. Ozzy can belt it like none other and the music simply blows you away. I would recommend this album to anybody, especially people into 70s and 80s metal.
OVERALL 9.5/10
Masters of Reality
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