The title track "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" is one of my favorite Sabbath tracks. Easily their most loved riff, Tony crushed all would-be heirs to his throne of riffage by producing this amazing, earth-shattering riff. I love the jazzy break-down/chorus, it is amazingly gentle and serene compared to the menacing verse riff. Ozzy's vocals are so good, he cannot even sing the song today, as it is now vocally out of his range. The grinding second break-down unleashes the heaviest riff by any band to date at that point. During the same section, Ozzy's vocals begin to crack, he is literally giving it all he's got. Amazing. The onslaught continues with "A National Acrobat", a great metal song, and my second favorite by the band. Bill Ward's jazz drumming is second to none, an amazing racket, yet very tight in form. Geezer Butler and Tony's guitar/bass inter-play is better than ever here, incredibly tight and in total simpatico. I love Geezer's creepy sci-fi lyrics about what appears to be artificial insemination, a then taboo topic. A true stand-out track, one of the best by the band.
"Fluff" is a fairly useless instrumental track by Tony. Gentle acoustics provided a similar vibe to "Laguna Sunrise" off of "Vol. 4", released the previous year. A good break from the heavy riffs, but pretty much a throwaway track on this otherwise stellar album, very sleep-inducing, and far too long for a Sabbath instrumental. "Sabbra Cadabra" jolts you awake with a blistering-fast riff from Tony, and elastic bass-playing from the nimble Geezer. Bill Ward smacks the crap out of his kit, and approaches near god-like status. A very positive song, it really is a love song wrapped in a tough, metallic exterior. I don't normally like overt synth-lines on metal songs, but Rick Wakeman of YES delivers some very keys here. I love the bluesy outro, Ozzy delivers some great showmanship vocally, playing with the song and the audience, his vocals cut up and mangled amid sick-sounding groans and taunts, very clever studio work.
"Side 2" (are you really going to listen to this on CD/MP3/Youtube/, c'mon, get serious) kicks off with the very dark "Killing Yourself to Live". An early blueprint of "doom metal", the song contains a crushingly heavy chorus and lyrics, very "down-tuned" in terms of guitars. Ozzy delivers his vocals with heart and fire, never to better himself than on this album, in this author's opinion. Hopelessly bitter and angry, it is a rejection of the pressures that society places on us, a nihilistic rejection of "the man" and his old, tired values. Metal at its best, revolutionary in spirit and sound. "Who Are You" is a one of the weirdest songs by the band. Composed and written mostly by Ozzy, it feels like someone experimenting in a studio. The synthesizers are pretty cheesy and dated nowadays, but don't take away too much from the track. I would have liked more guitar work from Tony on the track, but the guitar/piano break-down does more than suffice, and it is hauntingly beautiful. The song awkwardly limbers back into Ozzy's synth experiment of a verse, one of the weaker moments on the album for me.
"Looking For Today" is a more mellow song on this pretty heavy album. More classic rock sounding, it shows the band's movement away from the doomy, "downer rock" tag that they had been given during their formative days. Not a bad song, but it lacks the impact and driving force of many other songs on the album. Not a big fan of the strings and flutes, "Looking For Today" represents the stylistic shift that the band would take on their next two albums. "Spiral Architect" closes the album with an epic bang. A gentle acoustic introduction then kicks into one of Iommi's greatest riffs, very intricate. The jazzy influence of the band is all over the verses, and at the same time, a "Mellotron" brings the band into "prog rock" territory. A great closer.
"Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" is not Sabbath's best in my opinion, but nonetheless a very fantastic album. Besides the quite boring "Fluff", all of the songs are classic Sabbath tunes and are easily recognizable among any fan of hard rock or metal. This is classic rock at its best, and it begs to be heard, repeatedly.
Rating-9/10
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