Spin the Black Circle into the Void

I keep trying to support the music business, when sometimes, it doesn't deserve to be supported. Since getting into Black Sabbath for the first time since I was 13 (and much heavier than I was then), I have bought several of their albums, mostly used, from Rhino Records. On CD, I bought: Black Sabbath, Master of Reality, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I already owned a used copy of Paranoid, also from Rhino Records. Well, buying used CDs is all well and good, but I bought Master of Reality new, and you know what? It sucks. Not Master of Reality. The tired old lame CD Warner Bros has out of Master of Reality and all the other Sabbath albums. Same little slip of paper with the same mildly reworded bio of the band with the same white inside with the same numbers in boxes and writing credits and song titles, some broken into five parts as though Black Sabbath was prog-rock band, and most importantly, the same shitty mastering and dull flat mix. I thought I wasn't a big fan of Master of Reality, but a lot of my feeling was  a result of the fact that the album sounded flat and hollow and like it had been sitting stagnating in a pool of bong water for thrity years. 

Instead of buying that copy, I should have just looked around the internet, read about all the fabulous remasters and downloaded higher quality versions that did the albums justice. The band has millions of dollars and the old Warner Bros CDs should not even be on the market anymore. (They even have incorrect information on them, like a tracklisting time length of 8:08 for Solitude, which actually runs for 5:02). Only remasters that live up to the important heritage and quality of these important albums should be available, which reproduce what the original vinyl was like. I bought a new vinyl pressing of the first album for Christmas and was wonderfully surprised to discover a gatefold opening with an upside-down cross inside with over-the-top gothic prose pieces written within it, begging to be read in one's best Vincent Price impression, ending with a passage about tolling bells and soflty falling rain, which is exactly what one hears when one drops the needle on this classic, amazing album. Since not everyone has a record player to enjoy them the way they are meant to be heard, consumers should not even hnve the option of buying these tired old Warner Bros pressings from when CDs were first invented. If I had known, I would have saved my money.

Master of Reality is an important album. It was released in 1971, only four years after the cloying sounds of "Penny Lane." I can not conceive of most drudge, doom, or even basic metal existing without it. "Children of the Grave" is the first song I know of to use the basic chugging palm muted power-chord sound. "Into the Void" seems to be a precursor for all drudge, doom, and drone with its C-sharp tuning and its slowly moving riff which descends into the darkness the song's and band's name promise. Offsetting these metal masterpieces are two beautiful instrumentals, one of which ("Embryo") is barely anything more than a brief segue, and the other of which ("Orchid") is a lush acoustic finger picked piece of neo-classicism. This kind of contrast prefigures the classical virtuosism of metal and the neo-classical flourishes of black metal. As a nice contrast to black metal, this album has a unfied Christian theme. Accused of being Satanists (by idiots), the cross-wearing Sabbath blokes wrote several tunes about saving your soul; death's inevitability; judgment and reckoning; the wrongs of war, greed, and pride; and other obviously Christian themes for this album, as well as balancing it out with songs again from Satan's view about how humans have made him "Lord of this World," which Sabbath is obviously not celebrating, just observing. Unfortunately, the opening track is a paean to marijuana, which I can't get behind, so the album starts off—dare I say it—weak for me, saved only by the infectious, crushing riff by Iommi.

Along with the instrumentals, co-creating the balance of darkness and light, heaviness and sofness, (heaven and hell) is the very sixties-like oddity "Solitude," the penultimate track. First time listeners won't even recognize it as Ozzy. It sounds like a Moody Blues song, or one of King Crimson's slower lilting earthchild kind of songs, with the mandatory flute playing. Played loud off this remaster with some incense or dim lighting late at night while relaxing, it is an easy song to let oneself drift off to before the crush of this album's closing song and masterpiece arrives. The remaster of "Into the Void" sounds like it was recorded this year. This speaks to both the quality of the remaster and the timelessness of the song. Though the album ends quickly, barely over a half hour, "Into the Void" does not leave you wanting. If it does, just put on Vol. 4 (Snowblind) afterwards; it is even better (arguably). But first find a good remaster and download it.


As an afternote, if you nine inch nails fans think the shared title of "Into the Void" is an accident, check out the later Black Sabbath (Heaven and Hell) album, Mob Rules, which features a song "Slipping Away, " which is the title of...the remix/remake of "Into the Void" on Things Falling Apart. If you're reading this blog you probably like several artists influenced by Sabbath. This is one of their most influential albums.

Download this fantastic 24 bit remaster here.