Considering that the vocalist is someone who normally hits your pristine highs and uses superior technique, it really made for something abnormal. More importantly, it stands out so significantly from really anything else in the band’s discography due to it being the least clean thing they’d ever do. There’s some glaringly corny stuff on here such as the aforementioned “Digital Bitch,” but all of these moments to me still matter and work the way stronger filler should. Not enough? The title track works as a near-balled, simmering everything down as a step outside of the sauna that is this record’s harsh air holding it all together.Ĭould Born Again have been a bit better? Maybe. ![]() Construction wise it’s pretty basic, but the maniacal outbursts, explosive drumming, ear-shattering guitar wails, and ultimate hook into the cleaner bridge is just magical. Another personal favorite is “Disturbing The Peace” simply by how evil it sounds. “Zero The Hero” is more of an injection from the doom history, crawling in with a steady and heavy rhythm topped by catchy lyrics. I say this because the other songs do just as much with different materials. The album doing no other tracks like this outside of “Digital Bitch” (the song’s mildly lesser but still solid clone) would have potential to make me complain, but I’m actually glad for it. Opener “Trashed” has been one of my favorite songs by the band for a long time, dumping in thrashy (trashy?) riffs and letting the hot and sweaty atmosphere consume everything. Moreover, for there only really being seven songs (plus two interludes), this thing covers a pretty large scope of territory. Many will complain about those things, saying that the raw and mean approach under such a dirty production isn’t pleasant, but I think both of those things are the charm. had never really made anything this raw and dirty, and Gillan never put this much oomph in his voice prior, trading technique for aggression. What’s so special about Born Again though is the fact that both parties dipped their toes into something derivative of each respective artist’s typical style. The same could obviously be said for Black Sabbath, despite this being where the lineup changes really start to get rapid. But by then, Black Sabbath's greatly anticipated association with Ian Gillan had gone down as one of heavy metal's all-time greatest disappointments, and nearly killed the genre's founding fathers in the process.Approaching a record that I take great pleasure in talking about is always a fun time! Ian Gillan had a pretty large resume by now, between his own jazz-fusion band and Deep Purple. By comparison, even the barely-recognizable-as-Sabbath material found on 1986's belated comeback, Seventh Star - originally planned as a Tony Iommi solo effort, to be fair - sounds pretty damn good. ![]() Among the smoking ruins that pass for its songs, one might find it possible to appreciate Gillan's trademarked double entendres on "Disturbing the Priest," pick out a decent melody within the messy title track, and get down to some mercifully straightforward headbanging with "Digital Bitch" and the album's lone classic, "Trashed." But the remaining detritus, composed of embarrassing numbers like "Zero the Hero," "Hot Line," and "Keep It Warm" and pointless sound effect interludes "Stonehenge" and "The Dark," is simply beyond painful. Widely deemed the band's creative nadir (although a few later efforts like Cross Purposes and Forbidden give it a run for its money), Born Again also featured one of the worst album covers ever (it's been voted!), and the subsequent world tour was so troubled and tragicomic that the band's Stonehenge stage set wound up serving as inspiration for the ultimate rock & roll spoof movie, This Is Spinal Tap, when it was discovered to be too large to fit inside most venues! Born Again's equally atrocious "production" leaves one with the distinct impression that, in a misguided attempt to record the heaviest album ever, Black Sabbath came away with the muddiest instead. The idea sure looked good on paper, but when former Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan joined Black Sabbath for 1983's dreadful Born Again album, the grim reality was that Gillan's bluesy vocal style and oftentimes humorous lyrics were completely incompatible with the lords of doom and gloom.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |