Really Masterful (Master Of Reality - Black Sabbath)

Member Name: DrRobert

Product:	Master Of Reality - Black Sabbath
Date:	26/11/03 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Influential, Heavy, Excellent musicianship.

Disadvantages: Short

In the space of a couple of years Black Sabbath released four of the greatest rock albums of all time. It's strange how bands seem to spend that long in the studio these days to come up with just one album.

Master of Reality was the third of those seminal, genre defining classics. It may not be their best known album from the early days, but in many ways it is the strongest, maybe even better than Paranoid.

The album kicks off with a cough and launches into Sweet Leaf, where they sing their praises to marijuana. It's a Sabbath classic, no doubt about it, and one of the better known tracks from this album.

Next up is After Forever. Has such an overtly Christian theme ever been explored with such a heavy riff before or since? An under-rated classic.

Things mellow out for a brief moment with the short instrumental, Embryo then we are treated to Children of the Grave. This song features some of my all time favourite drumming from Bill Ward. People always go on about Ozzy and Tony Iommi when they talk about Sabbath but Bill Ward and Geezer Butler were every bit as important to the classic sound that was early Black Sabbath. The song ends with some spooky sound effects which blend into a short piece of classical, spanish style guitar playing from Tony, not what you would expect to hear on a Black Sabbath LP at all, but they did stuff like this quite often.

Not to worry though, they get back to battering the eardrums with heavy riffs on Lord of this World. It's hard to find fault with this song. It does what it sets out to do admirably. Great stuff.

After the sheer heaviness of Lord of this World they give us a rest with the sad ballad, Solitude. Has Ozzy ever sounded this haunting? His love has gone and he is at a loose end. 'The world is a lonely place, when you're on your own'. So it is, boys, so it is.

Finally we get Into the Void. Is this the heaviest song Black Sabbath have ever
done? It could well be. A plea to mankind to to take care of the environment, no less. It's a storming way to finish the album.

All in all a very solid, on so many levels, record. Highly recommended.

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