Black Sabbath
Reunion

THE REVIEW

Let me tell you a two-line story.

When I was little and fascinated by cellars and attics (like 99.99% of children...), one of those many times I found myself rummaging through boxes covered in dust, beneath an incredible pile of Marvel and D.C. Comics belonging to my uncle, I discovered several vinyl records, including, wonder of wonders, one with a black cover and a strange little man dressed like some kind of astronaut wielding a sword that to me, passionate about certain kinds of films, looked like Sandokan's. Do I really need to tell you which record I found in my hands?
I don't think so, but suffice it to say that my first contact with the world of Rock and Metal happened when I was six, in that dark and scary cellar that seemed to my eyes like some mysterious recess.

My uncle, who had so much patience in keeping me at bay (and never once chaining me to the home radiator to keep me still), after I broke his ears asking and asking again about that devilish and malevolent record, decided to let me listen to it, and, with his hands on an old sixties record player, he played a random song for me: "Iron Man".
Since then, that unmistakable guitar riff, those damned words that seemed to me to come from some unknown universe, have been burned into my head, and I still carry them with me, amplified and always connected to what I like to listen to, linking the records that come my way, always and always back to "Paranoid" (I'm speaking of the album, of course).

Now that I own all of the Black Sabbath records and don't keep them stored away like my iconoclastic uncle in boxes in the cellar, thinking back to these things almost makes me laugh, but then, having discovered the immense and pervasive influence that the Sabbath have had on all the Heavy Metal bands that I like, it makes me realize I wasn't the only one, nor was I the first to praise and sanctify them.
And the very history of a certain genre of music stands as witness: practically no Rock band in the world hasn't covered at least one song by the Birmingham band; practically none have resisted playing at least two chords, perhaps in a jam session, perhaps even absentmindedly. And if this means something, even those who support it represent it.

Therefore, I don't need to explain the story of this band that became famous 36 years ago (also because I certainly don't honor myself by possessing such capabilities) with two pillars of a certain Hard Rock tinged with psychedelia and sick atmospheres, because surely, you have heard, read, narrated, and shouted it yourselves from "to" and "from" anyone who chews even just a little bit of Rock'n'Roll.
However, I must say that, as far as I am concerned, the Black Sabbath have always been a totem, a guide, a necessary tool to delve into the grooves and all the sonic introspections of the bands I listen to today, specifically, especially concerning those of the "Ozzy" era. Of course, neither Tony Martin nor Ronnie James Dio did badly (but here, I think I'm blaspheming so I'll cut it short), but you know, Sabbath with Ozzy were something truly transcendental and inexpressible.

Millions of fans around the world, back then, when this double live CD (with two songs played in the studio by the entire band) came out, couldn't believe their eyes and ears. The surprise was immense, and so was the emotion for many who, just to name one, when I rushed to my CD store to buy it, the owner spread his arms in dismay, telling me that just on the day I found myself there, he had sold 30 copies and had run out of the CD.
Another story were my curses in Cyrillic and Aramaic, so abundant that they convinced the poor man behind the counter to have an express courier bring 50 more copies for the next day, which, naturally, ran out even before there was time to display one in the window.
And rightfully so, I would say: in this double live album, all the most acclaimed songs are enclosed, the most famous ones that, in short, made the history of Black Sabbath and then Hard Rock - Heavy Metal.

"War Pigs" greeted by a roar of screams from the audience, with its (unfortunately) all too relevant central theme, and then (sorry if I skip some, but it's just to give the idea) "N. I. B.", the classic of classics, performed in an atmosphere that it would be reductive to simply call triumphant, with its inimitable and unmistakable bass line, and Ozzy's voice that at every moment shouts "O Yeah!", as if it were a collective ritual, a curse that manages to trap after at least a million times it has been pronounced.
But there's something for every taste and everyone in this work that, while packaged, you can tell, to pocket a mountain of pounds (as if the Sabbath didn't already have them at their disposal), still manages to excite, and using the healthy and genuine ingredients that make Rock great: passion, sweat, amplifiers, guitar, bass, drums, and a voice that, yes, I agree, is no longer what it was twenty or thirty years ago, is no longer that warm and peculiar one with the very typical "southern" inflection that rallied audiences all over the world, but which is and remains, to be clear, the base and the source, let's never forget, for all that has been played, thought, enriched, sold out, or revalued in music in the years to come.

Ozzy is still the same madcap (perhaps a little more muddled, but you know, "the wolf may lose its fur but not its vice") and always takes the occasion to show himself as the showman he is: he rallies, moves from side to side of the stage as if possessed (maybe a bit catatonically, but the thought alone will do the rest...), shouts, screams, launches his famous "Fucking" dozens of times, and keeps the atmosphere high with his call and response with the audience. Of course, he's at home, since this Live was recorded in Birmingham, but the passion and the involvement of the people gathered there feel genuine, and among these people, you can imagine glimpsing the somewhat elderly gentleman with a belly and beard, and the teenager wearing a Megadeth shirt in the front rows.
But the Sabbath aren't just Ozzy, rather, it is Ozzy himself who makes us understand, introducing from time to time his companions of a lifetime: Geezer Butler on bass, Bill Ward on drums, and Toni Iommi on guitar, certainly with his outdated mustache and calm, collected demeanor, even though from his fingers come the riffs that make you dream, the ones you never forget and no one will ever think of setting aside.

A separate note then for the two studio songs recorded in Los Angeles: they are nothing memorable, nor particularly special, but damn! Would you believe that behind the instruments and microphones of these two tracks are figures who have changed the history of music?
I say, logically, nothing special, essentially because the terms of comparison that "Selling my Soul" and "Psyco Man", must entail are with genre pillars that have feared no competition for all these years, let alone for those to come.

And so, if you can, and you want to be moved again, in memory of some old spit of a memory, even insignificant, buy the Live, or better yet, find the entire Sabbath discography. It's really worth it.