Wednesday 21 December 2011

Dave's 500 Bus Albums No 23 - Black Sabbath "Seventh Star" (1986)

Well after listening to Tony Iommi and Glenn Hughes on "The DEP Sessions", I thought I'd better go back and see what all the fuss was about. "Seventh Star" wasn't what I was expecting. For a start it doesn't sound much like Black Sabbath. A quick look into the album's history tells me why. It actually started life as a Tony Iommi solo project, and contains none of the original Sabbath lineup bar Iommi himself. Apparently the record label insisted it be released as "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" which probably lead everyone to expect something quite different. Like me.

I found it a bit of a bland album, having a lot in common with the formulaic American hard rock of the mid-80s, you know, Whitesnake, Guns n Roses, etc. You can kind of still hear Sabbath riffs buried somewhere deep down inside, but it's far too FM-friendly and faceless for me. Iommi's just going through the motions, Hughes doesn't really sound like he even wants to be there, and the rest of the band might as well be session musicians. IMO "The DEP Sessions" is much better than this.

No, not a Sabbath album at all.

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