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ROCK AND ROLL! => Black Sabbath => All Other Eras => Topic started by: Zzzptm on March 05, 2021, 04:25:05 PM
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We start off with Illusion of Power...
I like the intro/outro bits, but the rest is very heavy-handed doom chords and Tony Martin sounding like he just listened to a Suicidal Tendencies album. Not a lot of fun on this and then we all get confused with Ice-T doing a rap in the middle of the song. Well, it's more of a spoken-word delivery by Ice-T, but either way, it's unusual for something like that on a Sabbath album. Unusual, however, is good only for the novelty value. Overall, the song lacks staying power and is not a strong opener.
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Yep this song is just all wrong for an opener. I don’t mind it otherwise. Ive never had a problem with Ice-T rapping on it. The drum sound is terrible on this album though. No wonder Cozy was unhappy during the making of it. Again I like Martins more laidback approach which was forced upon him with his voice issues but it doesn't help the albums somewhat damp and unlively sound.
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I've just listened to this album all the way through for the first time in over a year. And while it's not a great album there are some good songs on here... and only a couple of embarrassments! Talking of which...
Illusion of Power. Look, it's not Changes bad but it really isn't very good. The rap is nothing of note, 15 seconds and it's gone, but it's also not one of Martin's best efforts either.
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Next up we have Get A Grip. A mid-tempo rocker, which I quite like, I'm not a huge fan of the vocals on this one either, he does much better later on. It has a nice riff and a solid solo, it speeds up towards the end which works nicely.
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Get a Grip is a good tune, no question. I love the heavy in and the fast ending. The video for it is like a lost piece of 70s adult animation, not going to hold that against the music, lol... but the animation in the video is in the same style as the album cover.
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Can't Get Close Enough follows... umm, I am not a fan of this song, the tune at the start is all wrong, and although the riff has a nice chugging feel to it once it gets going, the vocals carry on being the let down here... and then it returns to the tuneless dirge at the end!
It's not been a great start to the album, 2 or the 3 songs are among the worst in their catalogue... but it improves from here on.
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Here's where I disagree. I absolutely love Can't Get Close Enough, and I think Martin's vocal fits the tone of the song with the emotion he's able to convey. It's got a great middle and I find the intro/outro to be sufficiently haunting.
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Shaking Off the Chains - Martin's weak on the verses, but does better in the choruses. The modulation at 1:30 really makes for a compelling listen, and Murray/Powell really cook it with their parts. It goes back to slow at 3:15 for an Iommi solo that's kind of buried in everything else that's going on.
I like the song, mostly for the modulation in the middle.
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Shaking off the Chains, I used to like it more than I do now, but I still like it. I'm not too bothered about Martin's vocals in the verses as I think it's meant as a contrast to the rest of the vocals. Some of the playing is really good, but I don't think the solo really exists and it fades at a point where I think a repeat of the chorus might have worked.
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I'm imagining Tony opening a letter and reading,
Dear Mr. Iommi,
As your dedicated fans, we feel it our duty to inform you that you could have done better with Forbidden. To wit, we hope you will accept the following modest proposals when you finally remaster the album...
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I Won't Cry For You follows. This is one of the best tracks on the album, it's got a great vocal performance from Tony. It's probably best described as a power ballad, but that's not always a bad thing.
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I Won't Cry for You is a tight and emotional song, but I don't think I really dug it as much back in the day as I'm starting to like it now. This revisiting is moving Forbidden up in my opinion of it. But I'm still left wanting for a real face-ripper of a song, something I could use for battle music in a game. I'd like at least one of those per Sabbath album, if you please, Mr. Iommi!
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We get what looks to be a mid-tempo rocker in "Guilty as Hell".
And that's it, really... I'm not getting any kind of rise or like or anything for the tune. I don't even recall hearing a guitar solo... just 3 and a half minutes dominated by the same tune, over and over and over and over. I guess that makes it pretty monotonous.
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Guilty As Hell is not as good as it used to be. I still quite like it though. BTW is this the first song to have a proper swear word in it?
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Guilty As Hell is not as good as it used to be. I still quite like it though. BTW is this the first song to have a proper swear word in it?
I believe so, first one on a studio album in 25 years of recording. Thanks, Tony Martin.
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I agree with the consensus. Guilty As Hell, to me, represents everything that is wrong with this entire album. It's not bad, it's simply not memorable or moving or much of anything, really.
The song suffers from the same misaligned production that the rest of the album suffers from. Attempting to hear beyond the producer's nonsense leaves me with a song that sounds half-assed. Evaluating Guilty As Hell on its own terms is tough for me because I am a fan of Black Sabbath. But it's not impossible, and in that context the song is still half-assed.
And just like all of the songs on Forbidden, if it just had a little more "something" it would be a solid piece of music.
My grandson is six years old. He was over for a visit the other day and knowing that this thread was in progress I took the opportunity to get his thoughts on the song. He was looking at the album cover as Guilty as Hell was playing, here's what he had to say:
Me: "Do you like this song?"
Him: <laughing> "No"
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "It don't sound like music."
So, take that for what it's worth :)
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Is Sick and Tired going to be more of the same? The opening leads one to such a conclusion, repetitive riff and then a big ??? with the keyboards in the verses... are we trying to do a Whitesnake song here? Then why is Martin singing instead of David Coverdale?
OK, we get to the solo, will it save the song? I don't know, I think I've heard this one before. It's technically well-done, but lacks heart and emotion.
Back to a verse and I'm still not feeling anything new or fun and wait, what, it's over?
Yeah, the second half of Forbidden is pretty much going through the motions.
Meanwhile, DP was blowing my mind with Purpendicular...
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I don't mind Sick and Tired, it's a bluesy song, sung well enough, I quite like the solo too. It's not a fantastic song but it's okay! ;)
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Next up we have Rusty Angel. This is an odd song, I quite like it... despite some problems. It doesn't feel like a Sabbath song, Martin's vocals are a bit off and the lyrics are poor... until you get to the slow section, there's a nice verse there and the subsequent solo is good but reminds me of another song's solo! This used to the best track on the album but a few others have grown on me over the years.
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I really enjoy Rusty Angels, one of the best Whitesnake songs Black Sabbath ever did. That, or it's reminiscent of Robertson-era Motorhead...
My biggest complaint with this song is the massive use of compression which often results in clipping, sometimes severe.
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The title track Forbidden comes next. One of the shorter title tracks in their history. This seems to me as a strange one to choose as the title track, it's not that it's a bad song, but it's not particularly distinctive either... little more than throw away filler really. As I said I don't dislike it, but it isn't particularly memorable... and what's he singing about?!
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Yep, it's filler. Don't know what else to say about Forbidden...
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Finally we finish with Kiss of Death. I quite like this song, it's nearly a normal Sabbath song. Musically it's slow verse, fast section (repeat twice) is one repetition too many in my mind and it takes too loong to get to the faster vocal section. The musicianship is fine, and Martin's vocals are good too. It's probably the obvious album closer and I would have gone with this as the title song too.
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I would have loved for the end section to be the whole song. I think I said as much elsewhere here when I was talking about making a better track order/track list for Forbidden.
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I'm going to do my ranking of the songs, but it's really difficult, except for a couple of poor songs there's not much between these songs:
1= I Won't Cry For You
1= Kiss of Death
3= Rusty Angel
3- Sick & Tired
5= Get A Grip
5= Skanig Off the Chains
5= Guilty As Hell
5= Forbidden
9. Can't Get Close Enough
10. Illusion of Power
For the Martin era I'll rank the albums:
1. Cross Purposes
2. Tyr
3. Eternal Idol
4. Headless Cross
5. Forbidden
This excercise has identified in my mind that Forbidden really is quite a poor effort, poorer than I remembered. I'll redo my overall ranking shortly, nothing has changed at the top of the list but there's been some shuffling at the bottom.
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My Martin-era rankings go now:
1. Eternal Idol
2. Cross Purposes
3. Tyr
4. Forbidden
5. Headless Cross
Tyr really moved up from where I had it at last and Forbidden dropped in my view relative to Tyr.
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In the final analysis this is how I rank ALL the albums:
1. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
2. Sabotage
3. Dehumanizer
4. The Mob Rules
5. Heaven & Hell
6. Cross Purposes
7. Never Say Die
8. Paranoid
9. Tyr
10. Black Sabbath
11. Eternal Idol
12. Vol. 4
13. The Devil You Know
14. 13
15. Master of Reality
16. Headless Cross
17. Seventh Star
18. Born Again
19. Technical Ecstacy
20. Forbidden
After this process, analysing each song on each album, I find that the albums I always loved I still do. The ones in the middle are still much as I remember. But some of the ones near the bottom I have a new appreciation of and others have dipped in my love.
MoR has moved up, TE has plummetted. Born Again is still a let down to me and if they ever get a chance to do a proper remix/re-master I'll be happy to re-assess it. Headless Cross and Seventh Star are better in my mind but still have their flaws and Forbidden is still rock bottom, and I'm not sure that whatever Tony does with the remaster it won't make a blind bit of difference with that! ;)
EDIT: Ah Crap! I forgot to include The Devil You Know so I've added it in now!
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^ Could be why they're not moving quick on that remaster of it...
In my GOOD group:
The Mob Rules
Heaven and Hell
Sabotage
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Dehumanizer
Eternal Idol
Paranoid
Vol. 4
Play these discs any time you want, I'll be happy to listen to them.
In my OK group:
Master of Reality
Cross Purposes
Black Sabbath
Tyr
Seventh Star
13
If these albums are playing, OK, I won't complain. Not totally excited, but these are good stuff.
In my MEH group:
Never Say Die
The Devil You Know
Forbidden
Technical Ecstasy
Born Again
Headless Cross
These are albums that, while I don't really hate them, I don't really like them, either. They're disappointments.
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So what's next - Purpendicular? :)
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So what's next - Purpendicular? :)
What's that then?!
(I'll see myself out!)
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I actually quite enjoy Forbidden. Much more than I originally did anyway. Iommi kills on this album. Lots of good heavy riffs, great solos and well crafted songs with a good amount of variation.
Again though, like Cross Purposes, not many memorable vocal hooks and melodies from Martin to get attached to and his range had really started to desert him by this stage. But the cheese and AOR is really toned down which is good thing. The production and mix seems to be a bug-bearer of most but besides the drum sound it’s never bothered me too much. If Born Again is the poster album for bad mix/production then Forbidden is more than adequate.
I think “Kiss of Death” is one of the if not the best song of the Martin era. Killer track.
Overall Rating 6.0/10
Song Rankings
1. Kiss Of Death
2. Can’t Get Close Enough
3. Guilty As Hell
4. I Won’t Cry For You
5. Shaking off the Chains
6. Forbidden
7. Get A Grip
8. Rusty Angels
9. Sick And Tired
10. The Illusion of Power
Besides the standout Kiss of Death I find these songs really hard to rank. No real bad ones at all on Forbidden but some pretty bland vocal melodies I must say.
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Iommi had reached back to a 'simpler' riff writing style that recalled some of his work in the early 70s, it's an underrated element here IMO.
As for the production, well, the rough mix that circulates as a bootleg (from Cozy's tapes) has a better mix. It's a bit on the bassy side and is missing two songs, but it was a cool 'what might have been' at least until the announcement of the remix.