TECHNICAL ECSTASY

Well, well... The reasons I'm doing this review are particular ones. Neither BS in general nor Technical Ecstasy can be related to prog rock as much as any other 70's western pop music act, such as Sex Pistols, Bob Marley or Three Dog Night. I believe I made my point clear in my few bits in the forum and this is a rare point where I agree with Ivan Melgar.

This album is radically different from the classic Sabbath sound. Although their trademark music was changing since Volume IV here we have a band that sometimes sounds more hard rock than heavy metal. The curious thing is that this alum isn't bad or at least not as bad as I thought it'd be before listening to it.

The low points first: the completely dispensable ballad "It's alright" and the shitty "All moving parts (Stand still)". They are disasters in any criteria, not only in Sabbath ones: boring, poor and totally lackluster songs. But the rest of the album is very good, what makes it a solid 4 star album in rock terms.

The opener "Backstreet Kids" has a good riff and performance by Ozzy, giving to the listener a different impression of the band, but not a bad one. "You won't change me" and its mellotrons keep the quality high but it's "Gypsy" that knocks me out. A song rarely played alive (I have it only in the bootleg "Killing yourself to die", from the TE tour), its tempo and mood changes can lead the avid prog listener to believe that it's a prog song by BS, what it's a mistake IMO. The heaviness and Ozzy's maniac vocals just makes you realize that you're listening to a BS piece, a different one, but a heavy rock song in the end. It's the first great moment of this album.

Side two is better than the first, with only "R'n'R doctor" giving a impression of a certain laziness of the group in the songwriting department. The awful "All moving parts", the opener of this side has the power to make the unadventurer to give up this album, what it'd be a pitty, because in "She's gone" we have a very sad and melancolic song, full of mellotrons very well aplied, and after it the great "Dirty women" with all it's raw power. The second great track from this album, that was ressurected in the live set after the Reunion. God thanks the gentleman that put it in the set list, because it was by listening to its live version that I came to this album.

Like I've said before, this is a good case of 4 out of five in rock terms (and the albums that preceded it are all 5 in my book). In prog rock aspects, only 3 stars. But I can't understand why this albums is so bashed because it's a larger departure from the classic Sabbath sound than it was made in the previous three albums.