Master Of Reality

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Unfortunately, the religious virus also rears its zealot head, in “After Forever,” which is a great Yardbirds-type arrangement nevertheless and despite its drubbing us over the head with “God is the only way to love” it does have the great line “Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope?” Orchid is a nice little ditty to open up Side Two which could have used some expansion, but whatever length, it does not prepare anyone for the menacing swagger of Lord of This World. As soon as that riff bursts out of the gate, you know you're in for a wild ride. Unexpectedly, the song slows down and sleazes along effortlessly. Ozzy's vocals are upfront and confrontational, presumably from the point of view of Mr. Skydaddy himself. "You're searching for your mind, don't know where to start" is an epic, put-you-on-the-spot opening lyric, and the song turns even darker; "the soul I took from you was not even missed, yeah!" And then, comes cowbell! Woo hoo! More epic doom riffing; "Lord of this world!!!", return, more cowbell. So? What then? How do I rank it? Well, It may sound harsh after such and total fanboy praisal as the one above, but I have to place Master of Reality as number three on my list of Sabbath Records... I hate to even think of placing them on a list, but if I have to, It'll be number three.

Master Of Reality is the best album about being a Black Master Of Reality is the best album about being a Black

Well, and the question is: is “Master of Reality” a good album? Yes, it is, no doubts about it. It's incredible how a band could release three top notch albums in two mere years, but, I tell you, Sabbath did it. While not being a long record (“Master of Reality” contains six songs and two interludes, with the total playing time being, roughly, 35 minutes), it is a very cohesive and strong piece, all the songs flowing well together and sounding fresh. Sadly, “Master of Reality” is often despised by the majority of the people, who constantly say that “Paranoid” is the “be-all, end-all” of Sabbath's catalogue. How wrong they are, indeed... Frank "Tony" Iommi (guitars) - On this album Tony starts experimenting with downtuning, with most of the songs performed tuned 1 1/2 steps down (the exceptions, Solitude and After Forever, are tuned down 1 step). This results in extra weight being lent to the riffs, and a heavier sound because of it. Plenty of excellent riffs show up here, in particular Children Of The Grave, After Forever, Sweet Leaf, Lord Of This World and Into The Void. He also shows some dexterity on the acoustic guitar, as seen in Orchid, Embryo and Solitude. An excellent performance here. Master of Reality is heavy. Sure, it’s heavier than anything until at least Welcome to Hell but that, again, isn't of great consequence as: Lyrical themes are varied. There is some very meaningful, powerful stuff here (Children of the Grave warns the consequences of nuclear warfare, for example.) Of course, in its sound, this album is very sludgy, very "stoner", and nowhere does this shine through more than on the album's opener, Sweet Leaf, a love note to marijuana. Solitude is a relatable song about loneliness. The tone and themes here are very dark. John "Ozzy" Osbourne (vocals) - Ozzy's voice is continually improving, gaining a little strength and some range. The change is evident on Sweet Leaf. Of particular not is the rather un-Ozzylike performance on Solitude, which has even real fans in disbelief that it's really him.Iommi wasn't a huge effects guy in the early days, but he did use a couple of key items to achieve his signature tone. In addition to cranking the mids and high-end on his Laney amps, he also hit the front of them with a Rangemaster treble booster for more overdrive and punch. The result was a fat, fuzz-like tone that is often mistaken for a Big Muff or some other pedal. It is, in fact, just a treble booster and a big-ass tube amp set on "destroy". Modern guitarists also tend to forget that Iommi's sound was not a high-gain one. Even with the Rangemaster, his tone was quite clean by modern metal standards.

Black Sabbath – Solitude Lyrics | Genius Lyrics Black Sabbath – Solitude Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

Terence "Geezer" Butler (bass) - With the mentality "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," Geezer continues in his trademark fashion. His detuned bass (relatively matching Iommi's tuning) lends a heaviness to the album not seen in other bands around the time. Highlights include Sweet Leaf, in particular in the under the guitar solo (more like band solo) This music on this release is very aggressive but at the same time it's very melodic there's a lot of great music encased within this release. It is one where you see a lot of raw emotion but at the same time you also find a lot of real issues with the music from a lyrical persepctive. This is a release from a band that has already been able to observe some of the things going on around them on their first two records. It is the bookends that are really what's encouraging and also very spectacular.

Note that, while the overall timing of "Deathmask/Into the Void" is approximately correct, the apportioning of time between the two parts of the song may be arbitrary, as the 3:08 mark occurs during "Into the Void"'s middle-8 vocal section ("Freedom fighters sent off to the sun ..."). The revised US pressing timings, shown below, compound this likely error. Moving on, every musician sounds pretty inspired here. The guitar is obviously the most important instrument of this album; Tony Iommi dominates everything here with his amazing riffs really shining. Almost every riff is, indeed, very catchy and heavier than the ones featured on the band's past records. So, we can find here Iommi's riffs in their heaviest form, that's for sure, even though “Volume 4” also has a couple of interesting heavy ones. He doesn't solo as frequently as on “Paranoid” but the solos still play an important role on the majority of the songs. Ozzy Osbourne delivers a competent performance, with his unique voice, even though he isn't, technically speaking, the best singer out there. Billboard 200 Albums - Year-End". Billboard. Archived from the original on 18 October 2021 . Retrieved 26 July 2023. Into The Void - Starting with the slowest and heaviest of riffs (heavily accented by Geezer's bass), it later morphs into a slightly faster section featuring Geezer's bass prominently. This chugs on nicely until about 3 minutes in until a triple-time section drops in to shake things up a little. After this we return to the heavy chug previously established. There's also a nice patented Iommi 'dual guitar' solo in here as well. No band could maintain such appetites. Remarkably, Sabbath’s hot streak lasted until 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (“It was downhill all the way after that,” says Ozzy). But a half-century later, Master Of Reality marks the final time that metal’s founding fathers functioned as a fist-tight unit.

Master of Reality — Black Sabbath | Last.fm Master of Reality — Black Sabbath | Last.fm

The contradictory message ("Think for yourself and don't let others dictate your beliefs! By the way, Christ is the only answer.") will aggravate those who pay attention, so I advise just immersing yourself in the riffs and letting them flow over you, because musically speaking the song is still a treat - yet another showcase for Iommi's fuzzy riffs, with the repetitive structure set against Ozzy's chantlike vocals giving the song a hypnotic quality. Master of Reality peaked at number five on the UK Albums Chart and number eight on the US Billboard 200. [ citation needed] Though negatively received by critics on release, the album is now considered one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. It was certified double platinum after having sold over two million copies. [6] Recording [ edit ] Note that the timing of "Orchid" on revised US pressings is incorrect: it includes the "Step Up" introductory section of "Lord of This World." The timing of "Solitude" on these pressings is also incorrect, as it includes the first half of "Into the Void", whereas the timings of "Deathmask" and "Into the Void" from the original US pressing should have been grouped instead. Bill Ward (drums) - Bill Ward's performance is similar to his previous works. He is instrumental in propelling Children Of The Grave, with the tom-work moving the song along nicely. He also goes completely insane in the middle of Sweet Leaf (along with everyone else), laying down blistering drum lines. On this album he shows what an accomplished (and to an extent underrated) drummer he really is.Taylor 2006, pg. 199, "Some say that Master of Reality was the first stoner metal album. The album as a whole is more late 1960s Heavy Psych in the vain of May Blitz, Grand Funk Railroad, and Leaf Hound." Let's not beat around the bush: Into the Void is the heaviest song of all time. Sure, you get louder songs and about more gruesome subject matter, but it doesn't get any better than the closing minute and a half of Iommi riffage. Butler and Ward also jam a little at the end, too! The whole thing is a masterpiece in the pleasure-pain see saw: the guitars are mixed a bit too loudly and panned rigorously in the last sections, but it's the kind of pain that gives its way to ecstasy and repeated listens. The remainder of these pictures are various cover variants for Master of Reality. Several of which are referenced from Hugh Gilmour’s story on cover art above. Embryo” is kind of weird because it seems very unpracticed. It is a clean guitar solo piece written by Tony Iommi, but he messes up and stuff. But it’s only 28 seconds long, so I’ll give him a break. Where the first album was built mostly upon a non-conventional approach to structure, and the second one mainly played off of technical intrigue, this album is more straight-forward in structure and focuses on heaviness more than anything else. If you play the guitar parts to “Lord of this World” and “Into the Void” through a modern sounding distortion setting, you will have something equally as heavy as what the likes of Pantera and Metallica were doing in the early 90s, although it is far more musical in my view in the case of Sabbath.

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality Album Reviews - AllMusic

The band also seemed to be tighter as a unit with a much more focused vision. The Sab Four always had fantastic chemistry but the structures on this album are more fully realized than anything that had come before. Nothing on Paranoid could’ve ever reached the speeds of the charging “Children of the Grave” and while the tempo shifts on songs like “Sweet Leaf” and “Into the Void” are nothing new, they were never this purposeful. The band was clearly done meandering around and not a single second is wasted, effectively bridging the gap from the psych blues jams of “Warning” and “N.I.B.” to the elaborate journeys of “Megalomania” and “Wheels of Confusion.” This album had the secondary song titles like the first two albums did (and Volume 4 did after this). However, the ones from Master of Reality were used less often than any of the others. They are “The Elegy” (with After Forever), “Deathmask” (with Into the Void), and “The Haunting” (with Children of the Grave). Orchid” suffers from the same plight as “Embryo,” except it is a little more developed. The bowed bass is pretty cool. Meh. To my ears it is never good to have Ozzy sing over slow music, where we are forced to listen to his voice. This would be successful in some cases from Volume 4 - Never Say Die but here Ozzy gives only one quality vocal performance, more on that later. The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. 18 November 2003. Archived from the original on 6 January 2007 . Retrieved 1 September 2009.

DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly, eds. (1992). The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rded.). Random House. pp.62–63. ISBN 0-679-73729-4. Larkin, Colin (1994). Guinness Book of Top 1000 Albums (1ed.). Gullane Children's Books. p.188. ISBN 978-0-85112-786-6. That’s me,” recalled Tony. “Ozzy rolled this big joint… I had a couple of puffs and nearly choked myself. They left the tape running and it turned into the ideal start for Sweet Leaf.”