BORN AGAIN

Better than you've heard

Well this is the Ian Gillan/Deep Purple Sabbath album. He always sounded a little like a fish out of water with Sabbath and yet this oft-abused release turns out to be one of their darkest and heaviest outings period.

The mix was awful and I remember reading that the wrong sub-par mix was accidentally used in the pressing instead of the clean-up mix. An amateur mistake for a veteran band and not a good sign on the surface. "Trashed"� is a rip-roaring almost punkish opener that along with the thunderous rock of "Disturbing the Priest"� constitute a reasonably nasty good opening. On side two, the title track "Born Again"� is the highlight, a brooding and mysterious piece that I can still enjoy. It's the only song that the band really sounds like they were unified in vision and taking their time, the rest of the album sounds like they wrote it Friday night, partied on Saturday, and recorded it on Sunday morning. And yet that's not all bad. What some see as hopelessly disjointed can sound to others like a refreshingly loose approach. Iomni has some seriously crushing, tasty riffs throughout.

Despite some problem in execution "Born Again" is one of the Sabs I return to most often in my middle age days. I like the dirty raw sound, the darkness, the energy-I sense a feeling of guys who know they're getting old and are grasping at youth. That may or may not be the case but on this album they left a vibe that makes me feel that way.

This is absolute the worst Sabbath album in my opinion. Nothing is working here, Gillan voice has nothing in common with Sabbath, he is more bluesy, hard rock voice. So to be short, avoid this album, is mediocre in every way. Not a track to remember and Disturbing the Priest is one of the worst tracks Sabbath ever created. 2 stars, forgetable only for collectors/fans only.

A year before the ..."Purple" reunion, Ian Gillan will record an album with "Sabbath". Not that this is not conceivable : at the end of the day hard-rock has crossed heavy metal and vice-versa very often. No, the problem is, again, the quality of the songs.

Not of "Trashed", the opener which again renews with the very good "Sabbath" opening songs : great beat, great guitar work and perfect vocals. One of the two best songs of this release. What else do we need ? Probably not the short and peaceful (?) instrumental "Stonehenge" (but this is a habbit for "Sabbath" to release such a song on each album).

Actually, one would almost missed it while listening to the rest of the album. Extremely heavy for most of it, lots of Gillan shouts (as if he could not sing...). EIommi will be the only one to be able to do anything to raise the level of this "work". Here and there a good solo of course like during "Zero The Hero" but really nothing from the other world.

A uniform and boring mood all the way through. There will be some more "Purple" influence of course like during "Digital Bitch" but we are far from a great song. The title track is also a bit more appealing. A slow-rock song with a good Gillan on the vocal command. It is probably the "best" song of the whole.

Iommi again will be the highlight on "Hot Line" and "Keep It Warm". If he weren't there, this band would have already liquified a long time ago. Thanks Tony for your incredible skills.

That's all we'll get here. Just imagine how bad the promotional tour sounded like ! They even incorporated "Smoke On The Water" in there ! Fortunately for "Purple" fans, Gillan will get back on board of the "Purple" ship very shortly after this. Maybe that he considered this as a warming up ?

The strategy of hiring Gillan will be commercially successful though. This "Sabbath" album is their best selling album for a decade. Only "Parano�d" did better (number one). This one will peak at the fourth position in the UK charts !

Two stars. And this is a rather generous rating.

Iommi and Dio clashed over the mixing of "Live Evil", and by the time Live Evil appeared in January 1983, Dio had left Black Sabbath, taking Appice with him. Since then Black Sabbath had no vocal, so Iommi approached Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. Drummer Bill Ward to return. Black Sabbath hit the road prior to the album's release, with drummer Bev Bevan (b. Nov 25, 1946) substituting for Ward, who would return to the band in the spring of 1984. The album was a Top Five hit in the U.K. but only made the Top 40 in the U.S. Gillan remained with Black Sabbath until March 1984, when he joined a Deep Purple reunion and was replaced by singer Dave Donato, who was in the band until October without being featured on any of its recordings. The original line-up Tony Iommi (Lead Guitar & Flute), Geezer Butler (Bass) and Bill Ward (drums) appeared in this album with Ian Gillan on vocals and Geoff Nicholls on Keyboards. For Black Sabbath fans, this is not a good recording even though the music in this album is not bad at all. Keep on rockin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Houston we have a problem.

Ian Gillan, the heavy blues rock legend joined forces with heavy rock legends Black Sabbath: gotta be a winner? Either that or a crock of legendary proportions.

While never plumbing the depths of Headless Cross the album fails to inspire. Perhaps expectations are too great but whatever it is the undoubted abilities of Ian Gillan never gelled with the Sabbath vibe. In some ways its astonishing that Dio's did. Who would have thought it? Well, maybe given the experience of Dio it was worth chancing it with Gillan.

The song I like the least is Zero to Hero. Dragging it out for 7 minutes is just taking the p..... Digital Bitch (what a great title with equally great lyrics: She's so rich the digital bitch Yeah rockin') would be a second rate Saxon number.

Another one for the scrap heap. Remember CDs do make good beer mats, and LPs slowly warped over a lava lamp can seem like modern art if you take your time.

A great band 'trashed' by evil offspring!

The line up of Black Sabbath was very stable in the 70's with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward making up the band for a long time. For Heaven And Hell, Ozzy was replaced with Ronnie James Dio who stayed for two studio albums and one live album before leaving (or was kicked out depending on who you ask, I believe). During that time Bill Ward was replaced with Vinnie Appice who only played on Mob Rules. Ward was once again back in the fold for the disastrous Born Again. The vocalist here is none other than Deep Purple's Ian Gillan!

Born Again is often considered to be the worst of all Black Sabbath albums. This bad reputation is, I think, mostly justified! The reason why this album really didn't work is simple: there are not enough good songs. In fact, there are only three decent tracks in Trashed, Disturbing The Priest and Zero The Hero, the latter two being introduced by short instrumentals. These instrumentals are called Stonehenge and The Dark respectively, and while there is nothing outstanding about them at all, they are actually among the better moments of the whole album! The rest of the album is just weak. Especially the latter half of it with really bad songs like Digital Bitch and Hot Line. The titles of these songs alone should deter any serious music fan! The full lyrics are even worse; 'keep away from the digital bitch, she's so rich, digital bitch' This is just a complete embarrassment! Indeed, a look at the cover should be enough! Almost everything about this creation is awful or weak or both.

Zero The Hero is an interesting song in one respect, though. It might be seen as an ancestor to Rap Metal! Gillan almost raps the lyrics over a groovy bass driven backdrop.

I honestly don't know if the whole idea of bringing Ian Gillan into the band was bad from the start or if they just couldn't write any decent material at this time. Gillan is a great performer and I really like the other bands he has been in including Gillan, The Ian Gillan Band and, of course, Deep Purple. Regardless of what the real reason is behind this abomination of an album, this is for completionists only. These long time fans, like me, can chose between laughing and crying while listening to Born Again! I try hard to do the former, but the great name of one of my all time favourite bands is dragged in the dirt here! I have to cry!

One (and a half) stars!

This 'Black-Purple' period album is a strange part of Sabbath's discography. Of course, Gillan-era Deep Purple is a much loved and revolutionary entity within the Rock world. To have Ian Gillan as lead vocalist for the wonderful Black Sabbath is something of a treat, even if a touch odd. Naturally, I'm in a minority who consider this album as a worthy release, but then again, this was one of my first tastes of the mighty Sabbath during the late-80's. If anything, the compressed and rather synthetic sounding production possibly drags the overall product down a few rungs. I've heard stories of Gillan himself receiving a boxful of 'Born Again' LP's at the time, and he trashed every copy of it, due to what he thought was 'lame' production of his vocals...... You just can't please everyone. Me personally, I've always thought highly of the few brief instrumental links ('Stonehenge' and 'The Dark') as complimenting the dark mood of the album, and, most songs are quite interesting - 'Trashed' being a strong contender for 'hit single' and partially successful at that. 'Disturbing The Priest' should be classed as one of the Sabbath 'Classics' - it's definately heavy, displays a clever sense of dynamics, and features the most chilling sounds of demented laughter since 'Am I Going Insane'..... The title song is one of those mellowish and emotional pieces which features fantastic screams from Gillan - 'Child In Time' eat your heart out !! Iommi shows once again that there's more to his shredding than mindless ego-tripping. 'Hot-Line' could've been a superb Purple single, and 'Keep It Warm', though containing standard verses, shows an interlude which brings the listener back to Sabbath's Volume 4 days . I could attribute the weaker moments to go to 'Zero The Hero' and 'Digital Bitch'. This album 'Born Again', may be a product of its times, though I'm sure that many folks can enjoy it with an open mind, and without any preconceived notions on what Sabbath 'should' sound like. 3.5 strong stars !!

Ian Gillan joins Black Sabbath and actually does a great job!

"Trashed" is a great number and a great opener for the new "Born Again" Sabbath with Gillan giving a great performance and showing he still has what it takes! "Stonehenge" sounds like it could be off the album "Mob Rules" but is fairly short so it is OK. 'Disturbing the priest" is where the album suddenly becomes tacky and cheesy with too much emphasis put on their evil image. Great screams from Gillan, but a really corny track. "The Dark" is another E5150 type instrumental.

On "Zero the hero" things lift up again with a grinding bassy riff. One thing I noticed on this album is the different tone of Iommi�s guitar, I preferred his tone on Mob Rules and Heaven and Hell. "Digital Bitch" is a real energetic monster of a song which makes one want to get up and headbang!

"Born Again" has great vocals and very good guitar work, the only problem is the horribly overdone evil lyrics which spoil the song IMHO.

"Hot line" is an average rocker, followed by "Keep it warm" which is a much stronger track.

In a nutshell:A very mixed album, great vocals yet bad lyrics and great riffs yet bad guitar tone!

Born Again is the eleventh full-length studio album by UK heavy metal act Black Sabbath. After two succesful albums Heaven and Hell (1980) and Mob Rules (1981) with former Rainbow and Elf frontman Ronnie James Dio as the lead vocalist in Black Sabbath, Dio and drummer Vinny Appice left the band after disputes with Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi over the mixing of their coming live album Live Evil (1983). Original drummer Bill Ward returned to the fold sober and ready to work ( it didn�t last long though as the psychic preasure of the thought of going on the road to support the album made him drink again and he had to quit the band. He was replaced by former Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan for the subsequent tour) and the band set out to find a new frontman. Former Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan was asked to join the band and he accepted the offer.

The music on the album is unmistakably in heavy rock/ metal Black Sabbath style but there are more keyboards on Born Again than on any previous album by the group. The biggest difference between Born Again and earlier releases are of course the addition of new lead singer Ian Gillan though. His bluesy style is very different from both the style of Ozzy and Dio. Allthough I greatly enjoy Ian Gillan�s contributions to Deep Purple his performance here is a problem for the album. He sounds uninspired and weak to my ears and his bluesy and often forced style really doesn�t click with the heavy metal style of Black Sabbath IMO. Most of the songs on the album are also weak and not really of the usual high standard from the band. There are only two songs here that I think are worth mentioning and that�s Disturbing the Priest and Zero the Hero the rest are more or less dispensable.

The musicianship is good as ever but as mentioned Ian Gillan�s performance is way below what you could rightly expect from a singer of his caliber.

The production is awful to my ears. After the powerful and rich Martin Birch productions on the two previous albums, Born Again sounds lifeless and flat in comparison ( the sound on the guitar solos is an abomination IMO). The album was produced by Robin Black and Black Sabbath but supposedly Geezer Butler did most of the work.

Born Again is not a very succesful album IMO. First of all the choice of Ian Gillan as the new singer in Black Sabbath turned out to be a big mistake. Secondly most of the songs sound uninspired and trivial. Thirdly the sound quality is way below average. I�m not impressed and it is safe to say that I�m very disappointed. A 2 star rating is all I can give. Their worst effort by far up until then.

I am old fan of Black Sabbath and I am sure that they are one of best heavy metal band of all times. The question is are they proggy enough to be represented on this site? I think no way, but it's good that we have possibility to speak about their music once again even there.

Now the album. I had listen for almost all BS albums during years and years. It's very different music there when playing with different vocalists: doomy heavy bluesy Ozzy's period is absolutely different from melodic Dragons heavy metal of Dio's. But both they are absolutely the best. After the band started endless change from one unsuccessfull experiment to another.

The experiment with Gillan was the weak point, only plus - it wasn't very boring. Gillan is singing in his usual manner of that period ( more Ian Gillan band then Deep Purple style), what means that he likes to scream instead of singing in any possibility. His voice is still strong enough, but it just doesn't go good with BS music.

In fact, the album looks as unhappy mix of BS playing and Gillan vocal line is put on from just another recording in another studio. Both together sounds STRANGE.

There are few positive moments in all album, but common feeling is raw and unacceptable.

Born Again is without doubt Sabbaths most maligned album. Given the strong albums that preceded and the fact that Ian Gillan had joined for the vocals, it is no surprise that many people were very disappointed. I had pretty much ignored the album as well and only knew one song Zero the Hero from a cover by Godflesh.

To complete my Sabbath series here I picked it up after all. Free of any preconceptions or expectations about the whole adventure I wasn't all that disappointed, meaning this isn't the worst Sabbath album. One remark though, the sound is really really bad. The overblown and over-reverbed 80's production has squashed all possible power out of this album. It's one big muddy plastic murk, devoid of dynamics and edge.

But onto the music now. Trashed is an OK opener. Give this a remix and it would be good. The second track however gave me a bit of a startle. Much to my surprise I knew this Disturbing the Priest song, again from a cover, this time by Psychotic Waltz (I though it was just an old demo song of their own making, I had no clue it was a Sabbath cover). It's a very strong track, very progressive for Sabbath. It's so haunted, dark and dissonant. Had Iommi been listening to Bauhaus when writing this?

Zero the Hero is almost industrial metal. Gillan's vocals aren't entirely appropriate here though. His bluesy vocals don't sit well with the ominous main theme. Dark, spooky, heavy, and very original again. I didn't know Sabbath had an influence on the industrial scene (well maybe yes I did, as also Ministry did a Sabbath cover).

The rest of the album is second-rate material of the kind that also disgraced Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. But the just those two excellent highlights are motivation enough for two stars.

This album must have been the biggest inspiration for the movie This Is Spinal Tap considering all the stories that Gillian told related to his brief collaboration with Black Sabbath (go to YouTube and type 'Ian Gillian' + 'Born Again'). Besides, some of the tracks actually resemble songs from the movie! I guess what I'm trying to say is that this album is a complete mess.

Originally I was discouraged by all the negative professional reviews to even give this album a spin, but after talking to a few hardcore Black Sabbath fans they really makes this album seem like an underrated piece of art. Just after completing my military service, I got a hefty chunk of cash as a bonus so it felt only right to invest some of that money into a few risky releases that I would otherwise have never even considered purchasing. So I lay my money down and Born Again was in my possession.

Things kick-off well with Trashed where Ian Gillian clearly makes his presence known, but it's a downhill slide from here on. There is no reason to even talk about the rest of these terrible composition and instead I'll let their titles do the talking. We have clich�-filled titles like Stonehenge mixed with painfully ridiculous tunes like Disturbing The Priest, Digital Bitch and ...wait for it...*drum roll*... Keep It Warm?!?

The thing that really ruins this whole experience is the terrible production that, I suppose, is meant to sound intimidating and rough but ends up like a blurry mess where I can't hear anything than Iommis guitar. There is also a definite '80s vibe in the sound scheme that just makes this whole material sound really dated and don't even get me started on the album cover!

Even if you're a fan of Black Sabbath, which I consider myself to be, then do yourself a favor and stay away from this terrible album! I'm sure that there might be some sort of a nostalgia factor for some of the band's fans who heard this record when it was first released, but otherwise this is strictly a completionists only release!

**** star songs: Trashed (4:15)

*** star songs: Stonehenge (1:58) Disturbing The Priest (5:48) Born Again (6:32) Hot Line (4:51)

** star songs: The Dark (0:45) Zero The Hero (7:34) Digital Bitch (3:38) Keep It Warm (5:36)

'Born Again' - Black Sabbath (4/10)

By all means, a collaboration between Black Sabbath and Ian Gillan should have ruled. Sabbath had spurred the heavy metal sound, and Gillan had dished out some of hard rock's most enduring records with Deep Purple. Not only that, but Sabbath now had a precedent to become awesome with a new vocalist. Dio's induction led to "Heaven And Hell", the album that saved the band from crippling mediocrity. "Born Again" has no such luck, however. The songwriting standards are back to the way they were with "Technical Ecstasy", and for whatever reason, Gillan's vocals to not fit nearly as well as they should have. "Born Again" is a disappointing chapter in the band's history.

Although not as articulate as Dio, Ian Gillan had an amazing voice throughout the 70's. Particularly in his shrieking falsettos, there is no doubt that he was one of his era's vocal greats when it came to hard rock. Listening to his performance on "Child In Time" from Deep Purple's "In Rock" album makes it clear that his haunting voice would have worked well with Sabbath's relatively dark sound. Although many argue that his bluesy style does not fit with the heavier sound that Black Sabbath goes for, it could have been incredible. Sadly this potential is far from realized; the whole thing sounds underbudgeted and generally uninspired. Gillan's falsettos sound great for the most part, but the songwriting falls flat for the most part. Barring the moments where he sets his voice on fire, Gillan's performance feels like he doesn't care about the music, and who can blame him? The composition falls flat more often than not; there isn't a melody of riff that sticks after the album's over.

The biggest fault here is undoubtedly the production and mixing. Apparently, the rough cuts were accidentally published rather than the refined mix, and if that is true, it's a pretty juvenile slip-up for a veteran band to make. The album sounds like a rough demo, or a work-in-progress. As a result, the more upbeat 'rock' tracks are completely unenjoyable to listen to, with only Gillan's shrieks clambering above the mess. However, something very unexpected happens as a by-product of this. Also thanks in part to Gillan's eerie falsettos, this is the darkest Sabbath have sounded since the debut. The slower tunes and ambient interludes are actually pretty good, and the lo-fi sludge gives it a diabolical atmosphere that I might compare to some black metal. "Disturbing The Priest" and "Zero The Hero" rekindle this evil sound. Further proof that not everything is black or white, especially when it comes to music.

"Born Again"s creepy vibe is not near enough to save it from being considered one of Sabbath's weakest efforts, sadly. Taking into account the fact that most of the album still defaults on conventional hard rock songwriting, it becomes nearly unlistenable when paired with a production that sounds like it was engineered by a studio intern. It might be worth checking out for Ian Gillan friends, but this is a chapter in Black Sabbath's history that is best left forgotten.

The unthinkable happened and Ian Gillan jumped aboard Starship Sabbath and the voyage began. What voyage? Well, the voyage away from Genius, landing on planet So-And-So. "Born again" and the following two albums weren't as inspired or enjoyable as the Dio-era. Not totally bad, just not that great.

"Born again" suffers not only by way of the songs but also from bad reputation. It's really not that bad as some people say, in my opinion. There are highlights. In general "Born again" is a doom-laden, led-heavy, chaptig, frightening album and quite unique in the Sabbath canon. It's literally like climbing down into the depths of Hell. Gillan's typical screaming adds alot to this feeling,coming like rays of devilish yells of fear and insanity through a haze of doomy, murky music.

Some songs are great stuff (Disturbing the priest and Zero the Hero, for instance), some are enjoyable and atmospheric (the title track is one) and othersare easily forgotten (like Stonehenge and Keep it warm).

In short "Born again" offers some great music, it's just not that great an album.

In a "Hit Parader" magazine from late 1983 or early 1984 I read an interview done with Black Sabbath, and among other things they talked about how Ian Gillan joined the band for this album. Gillan said that they went to a pub, they drank a lot, they talked about him singing with them, and the next day he realized that he had joined the band. A story which for me sounds a bit funny and that maybe wasn`t as true as it was told, but anyway, Gillan joined the band for this album and later toured with them with then ELO`s drummer Bev Bevan replacing Bill Ward. Well. This album seems to be loved or hated by some listeners, but in my opinion isn`t as bad as I have read in some reviews and in some websites.This album is a very good Heavy Metal album, sometimes noisy, but good anyway. Maybe the problem is that Gillan`s great voice is very related to Deep Purple`s sound, and even his "legendary shriek" (as Tony Iommi refers to it in that interview) is "very Gillan" and very related to Deep Purple too. Another problem maybe is that the album is not as "dark" as other albums from the band, and even there is some good humour in some songs ("Trashed", "Disturbing the Priest") which maybe was one of the influences that Gillan also had in the band. So, for me it was an interesting combination of two styles of Heavy Metal even if the final product didn`t convince very much the fans or even the then members of the band themselves. Maybe Gillan joined the band only to have some fun with his friends in Black Sabbath, or maybe only to make time unitl the rumored reunion of Deep Purple could be a reality (a thing that happened in mid 1984, so Gillan left Black Sabbath to join that band again). The sound of the album is a bit saturated, very heavy, but still good. Drummer Bill Ward plays very well in each track, and I don`t know why he didn`t tour with the band for this album (maybe it was for health reasons). Iommi`s guitars sound as good and very heavy as always, and Butler`s sound and playing is also very good. The cover design has been criticized a lot, but for me it really is a funny cover which made me laugh the first time I saw it because it seems to me to be like taken from a scene from an horror movie. In conclusion: this album is good. It was a good "experiment" that maybe didn`t work very well as a Black Sabbath album, but Gillan sounded very well as lead singer in this album which maybe could have been better appreciated if it wasn`t released as a Black Sabbath album but under the name of a new band. In 1983-84 Heavy Metal was very popular in some FM radio stations in my city, but some bands were more in the Glam Rock / Arena Rock / Corporate Rock styles in image and sound. Black Sabbath with this album sounded and looked then as a more authentic example of the Heavy Metal style in that time. They were one of the pioneers of that style anyway, like Gillan when he joined Deep Purple.

I am ashamed to say that I have ignored this album all of these years. I have listened to the bad reviews and written this album off as a mishap of the 80s and the hair bands of the time. After hearing Mob Rules which was released just before this one (with Ronnie James Dio as the lead vocalist), I figured Black Sabbath had taken the next logical step from that album and made "Born Again" from the same cookie cutter pattern as all the other hair bands that were storming the pop charts at the time. Boy was I ever so wrong.

Ian Gillam (Deep Purple) takes the lead vocalist spot on this album. Ian's had some great performances and some not so great, so I am happy to say that this is one of his better gigs and his vocals fit right with the atmosphere and evil feelings of this album. Now, as other reviewers have said, this is not their best album and it doesn't quite reach the 5 star quality of most of the Osbourne era albums, but it comes closer than many of the other non-Ozzy albums. Too bad that things didn't work out between Ian and the band, but this is the only album with Ian on it. The stories go that Ian broke all of his records that he received from the recording of this album and that he threw up when he saw the album cover. Maybe if he had stayed, the sound might have suffered, we will never know. But at least this line up of the band released a very good album here.

The music is hard, the first side of the album is the best and most progressive with songs that should be considered classic Sabbath and should be considered some of their best. The second side suffers from a little sameness, especially from the last two tracks, but don't skip over the title track because it is also one of their best, sounding a lot like the hard dark blues of the first album. Don't make the same mistake I did, give this one a chance. If you don't like it, then it's not like you are out much, but if you do like it, you will discover like I did that you are in for a nice surprise. Congrats to the band for not falling to the corporate heavy metal that was around at the time and for not compromising their sound, at least for this album. This one is and hopefully soon will become an excellent addition to my prog rock collection, preferably on vinyl. 4 stars.