The penultimate offering from Black Sabbath’s classic line-up is evidently the start of the band’s decline. Far from the gloomy and gothic ‘evil blues’ of their debut and the more refined heavy metal sound they pioneered shortly after, ‘Technical Ecstasy’ attempts a more commercial hard rock avenue to their traditional back streets, reluctantly smashing through fences and driving over peoples’ gardens and patios in the process. Well, you get the idea. Technical Ecstasy isn’t the band’s worst offering by any means, but its inclusion as part of the recently released Black Box simply for falling in at the tail-end of the Ozzy Osbourne era offers a spotlight it ...  Read the complete review

I'll be merciful with 'Technical Ecstasy'. Black Sabbath, having well and truly established themselves by 1976, had to be allowed some space to toy with. It's true that 'Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath' was also used as an exploration module by the group, but there were other factors at play for them three years on. One star has to go because of 'Gypsy' and, to a lesser degree, the backfiring anti-hit 'Rock and Roll Doctor'. A further star really needs to be taken off to reflect how unmetallic Sabbath's substance had become by this point even though there were mitigating circumstances at hand. Perhaps it was their drugs or ...  Read the complete review