Master Of Reality - Song By Song breakdown.

[Typhon]

Catching up here...

I've got an issue with side two of MoR, as I mentioned earlier. Lord of This World starts off with a big enough riff, but then it drops into a slower tempo and kinda doesn't deliver on the promise of the opening. Then the ending of the song is very much like War Pigs' ending. It's nice, but not really something that moves me.

And then Solitude dissipates the energy again. It breaks the flow and leaves side two in a bit of a flux. Overall, I "like" the songs, but not all together like that. The whole is less than the sum of the parts, I'm afraid.

Wow, I have got to say, this is the first time in these "Song by Song breakdown" threads that I completely disagree with one of your comments.  In fairness though, I really no longer distinguish between a side 1 and 2, because it has been so many years now that I have listened to the Great 8 on cds, from start to finish.  But to me, Master Of Reality is a flawless 10/10 piece of work.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

The last track on the album is Into The Void, Probably my second favourite song off the album, it's heavy, varied and a nice SF style lyric.

[Typhon]

Into The Void is in the latter half of my Top 10 favorite Sabbath songs.  A terrific heavy piece to close out this album.

[Zzzptm]

Catching up here...

I've got an issue with side two of MoR, as I mentioned earlier. Lord of This World starts off with a big enough riff, but then it drops into a slower tempo and kinda doesn't deliver on the promise of the opening. Then the ending of the song is very much like War Pigs' ending. It's nice, but not really something that moves me.

And then Solitude dissipates the energy again. It breaks the flow and leaves side two in a bit of a flux. Overall, I "like" the songs, but not all together like that. The whole is less than the sum of the parts, I'm afraid.

Wow, I have got to say, this is the first time in these "Song by Song breakdown" threads that I completely disagree with one of your comments.  In fairness though, I really no longer distinguish between a side 1 and 2, because it has been so many years now that I have listened to the Great 8 on cds, from start to finish.  But to me, Master Of Reality is a flawless 10/10 piece of work.

I just feel that, overall, the album doesn't all fit together the way the first two did. Vol. 4 suffers less from the playlist ordering problem, and SBS and Sabotage are dead on in how the songs flow. While I don't like TE or NSD as much, I think that they also have better track mixes than MoR. It's a balancing act, for sure.

[Charger]

Into The Void again one of those all time classics.

And again a song that is all about that riff....which seems to be the case in quite a few Sabbath tunes...makes me wonder if that Tony Iommi guy was actually pretty good at writing riffs or something...

Geezer's lyrics are very good here as well. Future of the mankind themed stuff...which is great.

Ozzy's vocal preformance is also among his finests.

The little tempo changes again through out the song are fantastic.

It was a real surprise this song didn't get live stapled in the 70s...infact they only played it handful of times in early 71. It was finally brought to the setlist during the Cross Purposes tour and then again to the reunion tour where it did become a staple. Rightfully so I'd say.

A great track that finishes off the early days album trilogy. The raw early days. None of the Ozzy era albums managed to capture the over all magic of these three albums again. Things started to get bit more experimental after these... Don't get me wrong some fantastic songs on those albums too but honestly none of the albums were as consistantly brilliant anymore until The Mob Rules.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I rank this album as follows:

1. Lord of this World
2. Into the Void
3. Children of the Sea
4. Sweet Leaf
5. After Forever
6. Solitude
7. Orchid
8. Embryo

[Charger]

I'd actually rank Children Of The Sea above anything on this album but hey that's just me!


Anyways my listing (today) would be

1. Lord Of This World
2. Into The Void
3. After Forever
4. Embryo
5. Children Of The Grave
6. Solitude
7. Orchid


Sweet Leaf

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
D'Oh!!!! 

Actually I agree with you!

[Typhon]

Inserting my final rating of the albums for completion's sake.

Master Of Reality - 10/10

[Charger]

MASTER OF REALITY

* * * * *

Sure Sweet Leaf is a bad song BUT the rest of the album is so damn good there's no way this could have anything other than a full rating.