THE SABBATH STONES

A Great Example of that Sabbath didn't die after Sabotage, or Never Say Die, or Mob Rules. Thought the messy lineup changes and the music far below the magic moments of early Sabbath, it's still very good Heavy Metal. My favorite tracks here are the songs from "Headless Cross", "TYR", "Cross Purposes" & "Forbidden". Notable songs are "Headless Cross", "Devil & Daughter", "The Sabbath Stones" & "Virtual Death". The albums remaining is, well, not even to be compared with the rest, which then again isn't to be compared to early Sabbath. More simple: It just doesn't do it for me, even as the Sabbath-Fanboy i am.

The music here is pretty far from the Dark Bluesy Hard rock from the golden days. This is 80's Heavy Metal, Sabbath style. So if you're new to Sabbath, or stuck in the 70's, Stay away from this one. If you are curious, i recommend you to get this collection instead of seperate albums. Not only because most of them are out of print and only can be found on Ebay&Used CD-stores, but because here you get the highlight from all 80's and 90's albums (Well, mostly Highlights). Me, as the Sabbath-fanboy i am, really like atleast half of the tracks here. It's tough to rate, since it has some excellent songs, but the Material from "Born Again" & "Seventh Star" drags it down for me. Still, it's a 3.5/5 from me!

There are two approaches for this "Sabbath" compilation.

One, you think "Why the hell is it necessary to get these Ozzy-less songs" or you believe that even if it is not essential at all to get all these Ozzy-less albums (which is totally true) some might be interested to get the "best" of those years. In principle, I would go for the latter option. But in principle only.

Because, this one is a crappy work.

IMO, there were two good "Sabbath" albums in all these years : "Seventh Star" and definitively "Cross Purposes". And only three songs out of sixteen come from those two albums. Of which a good bluesy one featuring Glenn Hughes on the vocals ("Heart Like a Wheel") and one of their best song from this long period. The brilliant "Virtual Death". On par with their very good work from the early seventies.

Bearing in mind that their poorest albums ("Headless Cross", "Dehumanizer " and "Forbidden") will generate six songs is quite unbelievable.

The most covered album is "Tyr". Four songs of which only "The Sabbath Stones" was excellent. The other three being two short instrumentals ("The Battle Of Tyr", "Odin's Court) and the poorest one of the album ("Valhalla").

The only very good number from the Gillan days ("Trashed") is also omitted. Etc.

So many mistakes are rather intolerable. Even if this part of their repertoire was not that great, there were far much better choices than the ones available here. Don't ever think of getting this one. Their only compilation to take into consideration is the great "Best Of Balck Sabbath" released in 2000. This one does not even stand shy. It is an insult to the fan.

One star.