Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi
Seventh Star

A masterpiece. (period)

The (personal) de-review could easily exhale its last faint breath, given the leaden ethical/musical context it refers to, with these two miserable, simple, overused, albeit often in vain, words.
In truth, another two little words (so to speak..), the veteran pseudo-junkyard-wrecker wants to modestly and pompously dedicate to such an epochal hard rock/metal-bearing work.

[Any lazy, unmotivated, uninterested, or simply illiterate individuals should abstain without any problem: the noble disco-substance stands out prominently and laconically up there; for any others... the few brave ones remaining, prepare to plunge into the wreckage-honoring-abyss.]

Black Sabbath: actually, this “Seventh Star” is a solo (as) album coined by the extraordinary man-maker-riffmeister par excellence, His Sabbath-Bearded Majesty, Mister Tony Iommi: a troubled and perhaps therefore so "felt" album, born despite and after the well-known fierce disputes (also legal, with the other original Sabbaths) regarding the use of the historic representative name. The primary noteworthy underlining must be rightfully turned to the truly infinite voice of Glen Hughes (Deep Purple and Trapeze his ancient pasts) of the year: a global spectacular and spectacular performance, (NO actual government, reforms, relationships) emotional intensity at paroxysmal levels, a powerful essentially (ultra)soul voice, endowed with a range and interpretative capability at times truly skin-prickling: in this respect and with firm irreproachable proof, one should marvel/bow/reassess without any shame in front of the "biad"/combo, placed in vinyl-seclusion: “Angry Heart/In Memory”, pure, extraordinary, wonder (in the sweet-stilnovist sense) hard rock/acoustic-metal, Glen Hughes literally dominates and conquers with a resounding and seemingly natural class.

The entire imperishable work is musically and solidly anchored (we are still discoursing, after all, about 1986) on guitar-percussive and overall musical dictates, forged by stern, yet basaltic, as well as immensely melodic, classic hard rock/metal: “In For The Kill” track placed in opening or the more central “Turn To Stone” appear more than exemplary in this regard; stern, unyielding riffs accompanied by a certain percussive liveliness, indelibly etched in (human) granite.
New generations, be brave and take care of the healthiness of your much-maligned auditory apparatus (but what Korn.), flock in large numbers to rediscover such a imaginative and fulfilling work: records like this come out once every ten years (if, and when, it goes well).

p.s.
Very recent news reports the paleontological-cheery-couple mentioned above (after nearly two decades), in the studio finishing recording an (impossible) newly written work redacted in four hands...