13 - Song By Song

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I decided we would go with '13' so as to complete the Ozzy albums. We can go onto the Dio years later but I suspect we'll lose Typhon at that point.

I suspect Charger will be similarly dismissive of this album as he has been of TE and NSD, but it will be interesting to see if there's anything he likes!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

I'll start with End of the Beginning. This was one I didn't much like when the album arrived, I think the first couple of minutes was too slow for me, but once it speeds up a bit it is great and I can live with the start. Silly lyrics about a robot, but really this has one the boys best jams to keep you hooked.

[Typhon]

I decided we would go with '13' so as to complete the Ozzy albums. We can go onto the Dio years later but I suspect we'll lose Typhon at that point.

No, you wouldn't lose me quite yet, but soon afterward. 
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Right off the bat, the opening lyric from End Of The Beginning is profound.  As soon as I heard it, after decades of no Ozzy fronted Sabbath, my reaction was "Wow!  Now that is cool."  The song eases you in, then eventually picks up, and hammers it home.  A great opening track to usher in the return of Sabbath's originals.

[Zzzptm]

End of the Beginning starts with "Black Sabbath"-sounding chords played with Dehumanizer-era production values. Ozzy is much, much older than he was in 1968... tbh, this exercise is going to get me to listen carefully to the full album all the way through, which I have not yet done. My first impressions when it came out were pretty much "meh" and I didn't buy it.

As it is, this is definitely revisiting "Black Sabbath" by way of Heaven and Hell lineup sensibilities. It sounds like Ozzy singing a song originally written with Dio in mind. Lyrically, I'm hearing a sort of re-explained chapter in Iron Man's story. Funny enough, the "OK All right" part has a "Dirty Women" Beatle-esque fade to it - is this where Ozzy took over a bit of the writing?

So the band are serving up a pastiche of sonic clues from their earlier compositions in a not unpleasant way. It's not a "buy this album NOW" sort of intro song, but it ticks enough boxes to be a good tune, even if it is uneven. Certainly not as bad as TE/NSD low points, not by a long shot. But the progressiveness in the song is forced, the various parts don't flow easily into each other like they did on SBS or Sabotage or the H&H lineup albums. Still good, but not great.

Deep Purple released Now What?! in the same year, and I'm going to compare the two as I go along. Similar old-school bands at similar ages. "A Simple Song" starts off with a much, much older Gillan than the one we knew from In Rock, but he's also singing to that age in terms of his lyrics, going for some very reflective and thoughtful material. The soft intro to hard rock is a move as old as Wishbone Ash, but it works so, OK. But when the hard rock starts, we get the oldsters showing off their licks, just as Tony and Geezer do - and the lyrics hearken back to IGB's Scarabus, which Gillan likes to favor more than he lets on. When it gets back to the soft ending, there's just enough variation to make it a proper prog-rock progression. While this song did not force my purchase, it kept my interest enough to want to hear the rest of the tracks and eventually buy and love this album.

So, will going through each song from 13 in honest, full listening get me to buy the album? I will see. It's not that I can buy only one or the other - times have been good to me, I can buy both if both warrant a purchase. NW?! was a great album from the Morse lineup, so now I need to hear if 13 does for me what BS-Sabotage did for me. I'm going to need a bigger hit than EotB, though, to close that gap.

[Charger]

13 won't be getting quite the same level of slamming from me as the two previous albums did....but it won't get the praise that the early albums got either.

End Of The Beginning is among the better tracks on the album. Although it is practically just a carbon copy of the song Black Sabbath structure wise it is still a good song. And most importantly it clearly sounds like Black Sabbath...but at the same time ofcourse it also sounds like Black Sabbath trying to do a song like Black Sabbath, which takes away from both creativity and originality.

It is clear that Ruin Rubin gave the Sabbath boys a mission for this album: "Make songs that sound like songs from the early albums" and that's what they did.

There is very little "originality" in the song, in terms of music and vocal delivery and the lyrics are bit iffy I suppose which only shows that Geezer wasn't all that keen about returning to lyric writing duties.

This is however a heavy doomy sounding number. And those are the kinds of numbers Sabbath does best.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

We next come to God Is Dead?... the low point on the album in my view. While not Changes or Am I Going Insane bad it's not a huge improvement.

When first released I gave it a chance but it quickly became a must skip, not even the uptempo section can save it. Dreadfully slow, dreadful lyrics and 9 minutes too long.

[Zzzptm]

God Is Dead? on this listen has me again wondering if this was a song written for Dio and they just didn't tell Ozzy so he'd sing it and they wouldn't have to do a bunch of rewrites.

It is very much like Dehumanizer in the instrumental feel. Ozzy's got some fire in his delivery at the end, and I like that. But a song this length to have such a small amount of variation makes for potential monotony, and that's where this song goes. Megalomania works at that length because it has different sections. Same thing for Child in Time or Roundabout... Now, spacerock gets away with it because of the steady backbeat that carries it forward, but this ain't spacerock. It's slow, deliberate, and long.

Doing my DP pair-up, Weirdistan is also a slow tune, but the variety is there within the first minute. I don't care for the processing on Gillan's vocals in this version - it's much better live without thoae effects - but the chorus is great, even though the keyboard solo annoys the hell out of me. Like Iommi, Morse gives me something that is expected and, if I like that style, I'm not disappointed. The phase shifts and break down at the end are what makes the song for me.

But all in all, I hold these two to be about the same. These two songs haven't yet sold me on their respective albums, but the DP tracks have kept my interest better.

[Charger]

I mirror KDC's sentiments on God Is Dead...

That song is the giant turd of the album.

The overlong intro part of the song is the epitome of tedious. Monotonic, uninspired and boring. When the song starts going with that Hole In The Sky ripoff riff it gets better but that is waaaaay too late.

Lyrics are bad, there's really no other way around it.

But one can just imagine what the hell was going through their minds when they thought it would be a good idea to do a song with a 6 minute intro section...

And zzz....They would never EVER write a song this tedious and slow with Ronnie...So there is no way in hell this is was written for the Devil You Know follow up..

[Typhon]

I liked God Is Dead the very first time I heard it, and it has only gotten better as time has past.  My only complaint would be its position on the album.  It should have been placed 3 or 4 slots away from EOTB.  Having 2 lengthy tracks to start is an error.  Other than that, it's an epic track.

[Vyn]

I agree that God Is Dead is waaay too long. About one minute of that song is bankable, and it starts over six minutes in.

[Zzzptm]

And zzz....They would never EVER write a song this tedious and slow with Ronnie...So there is no way in hell this is was written for the Devil You Know follow up..

The riff progression, however, is very Dio-era stuff, reminded me of "After All (The Dead)"

[Charger]

Well....maybe...but if this would have been a Dio-era number that intro would have lasted 30 seconds and then the fast part would have started.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Next is Loner. This was one of the songs that I liked straight out the box. And while I still like it, it has slipped in the albums overall ordering a little. Heavy, mid-tempo with some nice vocal embellishments.

[Typhon]

Loner comes right at you with a strong tempo, mixed in with a few pauses here and there.  Nicely done.  I like how Ozzy sounds in this tune as well.  Personally, I can relate to these lyrics.  After all, I'm a loner.   

[Charger]

Loner is a good track. Lyrically themed something that Ronnie could write (Lonely Is The Word and Rainbow In The Dark type of theme) although the lyrics ofcourse are much more straight forward and simple.
Ozzy vocal melody is even bit Ronnie-like...(part from those silly "alright now" lines ofcourse.)


It's a nice little rocker, could be tad bit heavier though, the riff lacks a little punch but the groove is nice, reminiscent of Voodoo actually and the solo has a bit of Lonely Is The Word in it. The tempo change in the middle is classic Sabbath.

This was one of the songs I too liked from day one and it hasn't changed.