SABOTAGE

'Sabotage' from 1975 is the sixth album in a row released by the classic lineup of Black Sabbath, and what an album that is! Following yet another demanding tour as well as an ongoing legal battle with their former manager (Patrick Meehan), Sabbath reverted to a more aggressive, angry and bombastic sound, perhaps enthralled by the desire to write a proper heavy rock album (which 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' is not necessarily). We definitely have a hard-hitting, in-your-face heavy metal bravado on 'Sabotage', the compositions and the playing here are dynamic, aggressive, and powerful. Of course, given the band's previous experimental trials, this album retains a lot of the progressive flair that defines 'Vol. 4' and the fifth LP and ultimately manages to find the right balance between the two stylistic leanings of this mid-70s era of Black Sabbath.

The sublime and remarkable side one, arguably the greatest achievement for the band, starts off with the thundering heavy rock number 'Hole in the Sky', featuring yet another excellent, jarring riff from Iommi. Ozzy's vocals here, on the other hand, are ferocious and vivid, and the drive and the energy of this song are quite illustrative of Sabbath's strengths. 'Symptom of the Universe' has an infectious, evil tone to it, reminiscent of the group's early doom metal days; instrumentally, this is one of the better recordings of the band, approaching the progressive and soulful aspects of rock in the final section, and what is there to say about the mighty epic 'Megalomania' - the band's dark, menacing, and vibrant progressive masterpiece, one of the most sophisticated and enthralling opuses of theirs. These three songs are so significantly impactful for the genre that their influence might as well be immeasurable.

Side two once again hides a few surprises, much like the preceding LP from Sabbath, with the rock-solid number 'Thrill of It All', and the Alan Parsons Project-infused instrumental 'Supertzar', a more theatrical entry on the album. Plenty of synths and digestible, almost radio-friendly sounds on 'Am I Going Insane', taken a bit further by the experimental album closer 'The Writ', where the band venture into more daring, kind of artsy writing territory. The entire 'Sabotage' album, despite that below-par cover photo, is massive, ambitious, heavy and really consistent. Some of the best Sabbath material is on here, alongside some of the most unusual experiments conceived by the classic lineup, which definitively renders this an influential heavy metal (with strong progressive tendencies) masterpiece.

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