What a find! Back in 1996 Hughes and Iommi dropped into Birmingham's DEP studios to rekindle their working relationship from the Sabbath album "Seventh Star" (I really must listen to that). These tracks were recorded, but the sessions cut short when Iommi returned to a re-formed Black Sabbath. Fast forward to 2004 and the tracks are finally cleaned up and released on CD.
Now I've always found Tony Iommi's guitarwork to be a bit soulless. Not in a bad way, but if you're listening to Black Sabbath, you're not listening for the sweetness and the flowers. Iommi's music is cruel and cutting, riffs that slice into you like indifferent demons from the deepest bowels of hell. We're not talking warm comforting blues here.
But Glenn Hughes has exactly that kind of a blues voice, a bit like Paul Rodgers and a bit like David Coverdale. Consequently this album sounds like a weird crossover between Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, like and yet unlike Gillan's one-album stint with Sabbath. In fact it's kind of like the opposite side of the coin to that collaboration. Whereas "Born Again" submerged Gillan's vocals in the relentless Sabbath guitar machine, Hughes here holds his own and complements Iommi's guitar beautifully, adding the soul and the heart that Iommi lacks.
If "Born Again" was chalk and cheese, "The DEP Sessions" is ice cream and soda. I'll leave you to guess who's who.
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