G//Z/R
Plastic Planet

Geezer Butler's career remained faithful to the Sabbath name for at least fifteen consecutive years, from its birth in 1969 until 1984 when Geezer left the band for a not-so-brilliant solo career. After two albums with Dio ("Heaven And Hell" and "Mob Rules") and a highly underrated record with Ian Gillan on vocals ("Born Again"), Black Sabbath experienced the most troubled period of their career with continuous lineup changes, and only Tony Iommi’s class allowed the records released to still remain above average, with some peaks and some rather embarrassing falls ("Forbidden"). Butler felt the need for a change of scenery, attempted to form his own band with little success and no evidence on record.

He realigned his career by joining the band of old companion Ozzy Osbourne, with whom he recorded "No More Tears" in 1991. In 1992, he would reunite with Dio’s Black Sabbath and pair up with Tony Iommi to the present day amidst all the changes during the nineties and the early years of the new century.

The desire to change scenery, however, continued to blow in Geezer's mind, and in 1995 he tried again by putting together a new formation named G/Z/R. The bassist intended to form a group with a modern sound in line with the new thrash metal of the nineties, featuring Pantera, Sepultura, Machine Head, and Fear Factory, bringing new ideas to a genre that was stagnating a bit too much. Butler seemed to want to start fresh from Fear Factory, managing to recruit their singer Burton C. Bell and have him sing on his first solo record. Bell’s unique vocal style, able to merge a growling voice with a clean and more melodic one in the same piece, made him one of the most gifted and innovative singers of the nineties. The Fear Factory, then, had just come off that cyberthrash masterpiece "Demanufacture," and it was from this and the previous "Soul of a New Machine" that Butler would draw inspiration to write new songs.

He recruited a monster like Deen Castronovo on drums, a session musician who had worked for dozens of projects including Bad English, Steve Vai, Wild Dogs, and many solo guitarists (he even played for Vasco Rossi!?!), and great lifelong friend Pedro Howse on guitar.

This first work by G/Z/R, although too derivative and dependent on the sound of Fear Factory, is appreciated for the honesty with which it was conceived entirely by Geezer (who also plays keyboards) as far as the lyrics are concerned, assisted by the guitarist for the music. Butler plunges headlong into this new sound made of hammering riffs and almost industrial samplers without fearing competition from the new generations, in fact, coming out a winner, especially thanks to the great performance by Bell and guitarist Howse who steps into Cazares’ shoes, even surpassing him in some instances, such as in the solos. Cyber assaults, at close quarters, like Drive Boy, Shooting, House of Clouds, Plastic Planet respond to pachydermic mid-tempo pieces like X13, Catatonic Eclipse, or Invisible. More atmospheric episodes like Seance Fiction and the splendid final Cyclone of Sixty with Bell authoring an outstanding melodic performance.

Butler would release two more works, "Black Science" (1997) under the name GEEZER with young and versatile singer Clark Brown and the rest of the unchanged lineup and "Ohmwork" (2005) reviving the GZR moniker with the addition of Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums. Although these two works are more varied and eclectic than the debut, they don’t have the compositional freshness of the first album, which remains a good example of hard music played in the nineties.