New Sabbath

the entire album is streaming on itunes now. It's really tempting but I pre ordered the record and aside from God is dead I'm avoiding all streams till it arrives. Gonna totally nerd out, smoke some niceness and sit in silence and listen start to finish
 
So the album has some strong parts and some really weak parts. Ozzy's voice sounds terrible throughout but I think a lot of that has to do with the production. Even a little reverb could have done wonders for him but instead its upfront and flat as hell. Beyond that some of the riffs seem a little generic. The song "God is Dead" is pretty boring until it speeds up and even then it feels like they strung a bunch of thrown-out riffs together to make a song. If I had to pick a favorite song off the album it would probably be "Damaged Soul" the 2nd to last track. It has a very Church of Misery blues swagger to it that I can't decide if I like or dislike, but when that guitar solo comes in at around 3 minutes I am reminded that Tony Iommi is very much a member of this band and still a guitarist worth his meddle. (Any meddle/metal puns will not be tolerated, FOAD)
 
So what do y'all think of this? I really can't find a single song that I consider above average. At the same time, it's all fairly tolerable and there are a few nice moments (i.e. the solo on Zeitgeist). But overall it's just very pedestrian.
 
i'm waiting for my stupid preorder to arrive... it's kind pf bugging me that people are pointing out what they don't like rather than what they do like. Tony said recently he will never be cured of the cancer, just treated... this is the last time you'll ever listen to a new Sabbath for the first time... I don't understand why anyone would not put 100% enjoyment into that special moment
 
I've played this a few times now and sadly (and unfortunately) as expected, it fails to do anything for me. I had low expectations and 13 has marginally exceeded them, but there's nothing here I'd rate more that an average 5/10. In fact, the songs are all remarkably similar as Ozzy struggles to get anywhere beyond the Brummie nasal whine of the last 20 years and (I hate to say this) there is no riff or tune which is memorable in the way Sabbath used to be.

Very sad to hear the tolling bell and the rain. I wish this final recorded performance had been a massive super nova of a finale to the Sabbath story rather than a footnote, but sadly I just can't see me selecting it to play again while there are so many better albums carrying the name.
 
realshows said:
i'm waiting for my stupid preorder to arrive... it's kind pf bugging me that people are pointing out what they don't like rather than what they do like. Tony said recently he will never be cured of the cancer, just treated... this is the last time you'll ever listen to a new Sabbath for the first time... I don't understand why anyone would not put 100% enjoyment into that special moment
Click to expand...

Many of us try and be objective when listening to music. It's awful that Iommi has cancer, but that fact doesn't improve the quality of the riffs one bit.
 
I'm not sure Iommi's riffs are responsible for the overall failure.
I'd accredit Rubin's overproduction of vocals more than anything.
Ozzy seems out of tune in several spots and his voice just plain overpowers the music throughout.

Sad to see that their last effort was a poor one.
 
Dutch Rudder said:
I'm not sure Iommi's riffs are responsible for the overall failure.
I'd accredit Rubin's overproduction of vocals more than anything.
Ozzy seems out of tune in several spots and his voice just plain overpowers the music throughout.

Sad to see that their last effort was a poor one.
Click to expand...

The riffs are decent, but nothing special. Honestly, I'm not sure Rubin could have done much better with Ozzy's vocals at this point in his career. Ozzy just isn't a good vocalist anymore.

And honestly, I don't think the album is a failure, it's just underwhelming.
 
The album is just bland, sadly. It's kinda like American cheese. You never want American cheese, but instances exist when you'll eat it.

This would be a decent debut album from a faceless retro metal band, but not Sabbath.

Disappointed people should check out Orchid - The Mouths of Madness and Bedemon - Symphony of Shadows. They basically released early black Sabbath albums recently and the quality is much higher than here.
 
Had about 1 listen so far, just so disappointed right now, only song on the actual record I think is decent is "God Is Dead?", the 4 extra tracks are better, why couldn't they base the album around them instead, who's bright idea was it to leave them off the main album, maybe Bill Ward would have made a difference, hard to say though, cause the songs aren't there IMO, they should have not even made this record unless Bill was involved at least, should have just toured instead.

I just read that Rubin tried to get them to be less metal and more bluesy, well he succeeded to the detriment of it, the more metal stuff are what's not on the main record.
 
Krow said:
The album is just bland, sadly. It's kinda like American cheese. You never want American cheese, but instances exist when you'll eat it.

This would be a decent debut album from a faceless retro metal band, but not Sabbath.

Disappointed people should check out Orchid - The Mouths of Madness and Bedemon - Symphony of Shadows. They basically released early black Sabbath albums recently and the quality is much higher than here.
Click to expand...

Poetry in it's highest form. Puts Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Whitman to shame.
 
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