Twilight of the Gods
Sunday, April 13, 2014 at 12:01AM Today's blog comes to us from the regular poster HIM.
Internet reading isn’t continuous. You pick one topic, swerve to another, and then leap to the next. So reading about Deep Purple’s California Jam (1974) reissue led me . . . to this. In a certain sense, it is so time-locked in amber as to be cringe-worthy. The mustache-less Iommi. The fat-faced Osborne looking more like Kelly than John (nee Ozzy). The pants-so-tight-it-looks-like-a-thong Butler. The thunder pounding Ward. This was Sabbath. No, it isn’t Glam. But it was Sabbath. Ward is gone, furloughed in a purgatory of potential albums and wand-waving artistic displays. Butler still keeps the doom-laden beat. Iommi, fighting the good fight against cancer, still traces riffs across the board like a mystic. Ozzy? He is there. Sounding better than he should on the latest release and sounding hit-or-miss (charitably) on their latest outing. Actually, that is a lie. He sounds as shopworn, as depleted, as confused as he ever has. His best days are behind him. No buckets of water, or "God Bless You All," or prescription Lennon glasses can hide that fact.
Like Diamond Dave, people forgive Ozzy a host of sins. But there is a difference. As the California Jam shows, the young Ozzy was the Ozzy of his albums—rough and hoarse, yet paradoxically tuneful and powerful; a singer capable of replicating the songs live. He was a spark that moved Sabbath forward. Notice, for instance, the purely spontaneous moment—the smile that crosses Iommi’s face—that Ozzy shares with his guitarist. Even when he strained to hit the high (and they are pretty low) notes, Ozzy was in the pocket.
That Sabbath, like Ward, is gone. Still, 13 stands as one of the best returns to form of recent years. But the form is slower, slower than even the Sabbath of old would like to admit (no odd “Am I Going Insane?” or plaintive “Junior’s Eyes” or gritty “Dirty Women”). The point is important. The new album--or CD, or e-release--recycles tended hedgerows, reminding us of the past. Where a Different Kind of Truth made us feel young, 13 reminds us that we aren’t. Perhaps that is the perfect coda to a band that made doom and gloom feel so alive: their energy and spirit, forty years past, still provides a jolt when we need it.
Reader Comments (8)
you should've performed with ace and peter. fuck you that you and paul didn't.
Like I said before, if the topic is something that rises to the caliber of Allyson's site, I will submit it and leave it for all of you to consider.
to ace and peter: since gene and paul refused to perform with you either with or without makeup, accapella or not, plugged in, unplugged or lit...you should have refused to stand with them at the podium. But, I respect you more for standing true to who you are. best example of KISS, ace and peter!