Master of Reality (1971)

In the beginning was the Word, and it was Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill. Join me on my dark Hajj through their discography, album after drug-drenched album. This is the way.

(1971)

"In Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe, Mick Wall writes that on their third album 'the Sabbath sound took a plunge into even greater darkness. Bereft even of reverb, leaving their sound as dry as old bones dug up from some desert burial plot, the finished music's brutish force would so alarm the critics they would punish Sabbath in print for being blatantly thuggish, purposefully mindless, creepy, and obnoxious. Twenty years later groups like Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana, would excavate the same heaving lung sound (and) be rewarded with critical garlands.'" 

So says the wiki. It's quite true; the sloggishness of this record (and two of the next three) was pretty popular with late 80s and early 90s bands. Moreso than any of the ones mentioned: Kyuss and Dinosaur, Jr., who each in turn birthed many bands in their wake. (I'll link to a specifically-Sabbath-y Kyuss song when we get to Sabotage.) For his part, Ozzy doesn't remember much about recording Master of Reality "apart from the fact that Tony detuned his guitar to make it easier to play, Geezer wrote 'Sweet Leaf' about all the dope we'd been smoking, and 'Children of the Grave' was the most kick-ass song we'd ever recorded."

I haven’t read either Ozzy's memoir or Symptom of the Universe, but I want to. That goes for Bill Ward's and Geezer Butler's and Dio's, too, if he has one. And any other books or Mojo retrospectives. That’d be one cool shelf. I’ll keep it in mind for the windowsill at the retirement home.

"Third album syndrome" is an occupational hazard, as much as "coke album" or others are for a recording band of any stature. A band usually has a backlog of material for its first few albums and then finds itself writing new material in the studio for the third one. Master of Reality feels like that a bit. It's really grown on me over the years, though. 

The cover’s kind of lame. Admire its pop art sensibilities, perhaps. Maybe if this ever got enshrined as “Black Sabbath Font” it’d feel more consequential, or the black and purple pairing the "Black Sabbath effect." To me it looks like they didn’t come up with a cover.

The original vinyl came with a poster of the band in a misty forest, at least.

Things get started with "Sweet Leaf." That's Geezer coughing on a spliff there, immortalized on vinyl. This is one that has has escaped rational consideration and escaped into iconography. The groove is a little TOO slow for me, though. It’s not really a favorite or one I put on mixes for myself. But I acknowledge its stature and metal-stoniness and pay all appropriate respects.

Next: "After Forever" This just doesn’t gel, and it’s too bad. The structure is sound, the lyrics aren’t bad, the ideas are good, mainly Ozzy (or someone) just feels a step off. Geezer gave Ozzy a lot of lyrics to cram in, on this one and “Into the Void,” but he’s a bit more successful in the latter. An overtly Christian song despite such lines as "Would you like to see the pope on the end of a rope / do you think he's a fool?"

The album has a couple of intros/ outros given their own names, like "Embryo ." This leads into the best track of the album and an acknowledged Sabbath classic, "Children of the Grave." Metal can be boiled down to this riff, an audience headbanging before intermittent flames, and Ozzy’s vocals filling out the aural space. And that helicopter-drum sound added over things. Doesn’t even matter what he’s singing, but “all you children of today are children of the grave, YEAH!” is (wait for it) pretty metal.

"Orchid" is pretty little filler to start off side two. I like acoustic interludes on metal albums. Again, we have Sabbath to thank for such things, as it became something of a tradition. This leads into "Lord of the World", where that bubbling-bong Sabbath pace (at the speed of bongs!) proceeds with customary swagger. I don’t know what Ozzy is on about (“you made me master of the world…” and the lines around it) but who cares. Not a favorite, but I like the direction/ attempt and structure. There it is again. Bill, Geezer, and Tony worked well together; I look at them as the structural engineers of all the best Sabbath, building aqueducts to stand the centuries as Ozzy (and later Dio et al) run along the top screaming out to the masses. 

Speaking of that at-the-speed-of-bongs velocity of Sabbath, you know what’s a great neo-Sabbath groove? Everything on Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger. That album is the best album Sabbath never recorded. Not in a derivative way, just along the lines of the general theme of this series of all rivers leading back to Sabbath. We'll hear from them again momentarily.

"Solitude" is MOR's “Planet Caravan,” so it’s a bit “mellow Sabbath by numbers” and you can see that sort of thing start to creep up in their catalog on this album, I guess. Still cool and all. Dreamy and effective.

And the album wraps up with "Into the Void." I guess this one was difficult to get down, according to all involved. Maybe they overthought it. The syncopation between riff and percussion isn’t totally straightforward, but it just doesn’t click the way it should.  (There’s an alternate take on CD 2 of the expanded version that to my ears sounds a bit more together.) When the second riff and verses coming in, everything goes back to clicking, though - no doubt there. I kind of wish they got the first part down a little more forcefully, though, as it sounds like it’d have rocked. (You know who did? Soundgarden: their version kicks ass.) 

The rest of the song is pretty killer. Not a top tier song for me but plenty of hooks and headbanging.. Iommi should’ve saved a couple of these riffs for songs of their own! There are perhaps two or three too many. Not that I mind. 

~

And that's a wrap on Master of Reality. It was hated when it came out, but its reputation improved over time. That seems right. Definitely a step down from Paranoid, but practically anything would be.  Dirtgrub-metal in the basement on the couch playing some Nintendo, lava lamp and black light optional, gurgling bongs and lots of dubious mustachery: not a bad recipe for a metal album, then or now.