SABOTAGE

Great shoes Ozzy! The one-two punch of "Hole in the Sky" and "Symptom of the Universe" is a potent one for any Sabbath fan, the latter song especially is just awesome. Not only do you get the monster riff, the heavy Bill Ward fills that would make Keith Moon drool, but you have that cool funky bridge towards the end. It's an amazing opening that makes you think you're listening to a masterpiece, but the best of the album is already behind you. "Megalomania" is a slow crawling beast initially with a later section that picks up steam, but here the repetitive riffs are less effective and at 10 minutes in length it gets pretty boring. "Thrill of it All" is nothing special. "Supertzar" is interesting in that it sounds like a precursor to Therion with the operatic vocals, and as with Therion, the heavy riffs and dark mood work very well together. "Am I Going Insane" was a clear sign that the ideas were beginning to dry up, really quite an embarrassing song. "The Writ" like "Megalomania" is another long mini-epic but it works better here, nice changes and some interesting breaks with acoustic guitars. Ozzy handles the emotional variances pretty well.

Sabotage is a decent rock album with one of Sabbath's best songs ever (Symptom) but it is far from a masterpiece, prog, rock, or otherwise. Surely recommended to Sabbath fans for the few good tracks but I can't recommend it wider than that. [2.6 stars]