Sabotage
	Produced by Black Sabbath with Mike Butcher
	Released on August 1975
	UK CHART POSITION #7 . . . US CHART POSITION #28 . . . GOLD RECORD (6/16/97)
	Find it at GEMM
NEL 6018 cover

M essage to Bill Ward: nice pants. Of course, at least he’s wearing underwear, which is more than you can say for Tony Iommi (and God only knows what Ozzy has on underneath). Hard to believe, but Sabbath was becoming slightly unfashionable, with Sabotage sputtering at the gold plateau. You can’t fault the product: this album is another heavy metal juggernaut, led by such would-be apocalyptic anthems as “Symptom of the Universe,” “Hole in the Sky” and “The Writ.” Sabbath’s unblinking eye, fixed on the end of the world, was becoming too much for some listeners, who opted to blink and re-focus on the new wave of metal gods (Judas Priest, Rainbow, Rush). If Sabotage has a weakness, it’s an indefinable restlessness and creeping sense of weariness in the material (addressed in part on "The Writ"), carefully concealed with shifting arrangements and Tony Iommi’s exploration of different sounds. You can hear the band trying to stretch the original vision to encompass something bigger: the overblown orchestral instrumental “Supertzar” and increased production value on “The Writ” (featuring cymbals recorded backward and harpsichord) are attempts to take Sabbath’s sound into new realms. The same ambitiousness was at work on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but there it seemed to come at the expense of the band’s usual menace; “Who Are You” and “Sabbra Cadabra” didn’t immediately sound like the work of Sabbath, “Megalomania” and “Thrill Of It All” do. To its credit, most folks cut the cord for classic Sabbath here, the last in the line of metal monsters. I haven’t heard the band’s next two records, so I can’t tell you what kind of dropoff in quality to expect. I can recommend this heartily, though. It’s one of my favorite Sabbath records, and not just because I was playing it when I had my first car accident (when people describe Sabbath’s sound as “crunching metal,” they kid you not).

NEL 6018 back cover	CWX-2822 cover

TRACK LISTING

1. HOLE IN THE SKY
2. DON'T START (TOO LATE)
3. SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE
4. MEGALOMANIA
5. THRILL OF IT ALL
6. SUPERTZAR
7. AM I GOING INSANE (RADIO)
8. THE WRIT
   
   CD reissue bonus track
   
9. SWEET LEAF (LIVE)
   
   All songs written/arranged by Black Sabbath

CREDITS

GEEZER BUTLER -- bass
TONY IOMMI -- guitar
OSSIE OSBOURNE -- vocals
BILL WARD -- drums
English Chamber Choir -- choir
Will Malone -- choral arrangement
Tom Allom -- engineer
Robin Black -- engineer
Mike Butcher -- engineer
David Harris -- tape operator and saboteur
Spock Wall, Les Martin, Adrian Rawlings, Niggs Hudson, Graham Wright and Monty Babson -- assistance (special thanks dept.)

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