I know just how good an LP Black Sabbath Master Of Reality is, I really do, it’s just that I never seem to play it. It definitely is my least played of the five* classic O-O gauge Sabbath records, for no good reason.
I mean Master Of Reality has two of my all-time favourite Sabbath tracks on it and the rest is not too shabby either, but … I’m not sure, maybe it just gets blown out of the water for me by Vol. 4, but that’s another story.
Master Of Reality was the Sabs first album where they had time to record and they experimented by down-tuning Iomni’s guitar and adding fancy bits, extra bass drums and a stronger bass sound, overdubs etc; producer Rodger Bain overseeing it all**.
The result is really interesting to my ears, the sound is crisp, dry, stark in places, there is no hiding here at all behind effects and reverb; you hear every single note and beat played. This all just goes to affirm quite how magical Sabbath were there and then.
You want an example? just listen to the amazing percussion going on around the edges of ‘Children Of The Grave’ that give it such a different edge and lift it up into being something else. The detail in the sound is superb.
Kicking off an LP with a track that went on to establish an entire genre of its’ own was nothing new for Black Sabbath back in ’71, tokers delight ‘Sweet Leaf’ went on to found and inspire much of the music that still jazzes my comestibles to this very day. That fragment of Iomni’s hacking cough dissolving into that ur-riff, Ozzy’s voice gliding far above, glazed, disassociated, uncaring … wow. Welcome doom, welcome stoner rock, welcome thousands upon thousands of bands, all birthed in those five minutes.
There is something about the opening of ‘After Forever’ that never sits quite right with me, far too jaunty but then we hit the riff and I’m gone again. The lyrics have always intrigued me, at once a cry to stand up for your religious beliefs in an uncaring world and a dig at hypocrisy. I am never sure how seriously to take them, particularly when Ozzy clearly relishes the ‘Pope on a rope’ line quite so much^.
I have long appreciated just how damned moralistic Black Sabbath were, at least in their original iteration. Far from the devil-worshipping, goat-sacrificing hooligans they were often portrayed as their early songs concern the evils of hard drug use, the evils of war, the evils of hypocrisy, the need to stand up and change your world for the better and the evils of the impending apocalypse. I love the stern almost Calvanistic^* moral views they espoused, a far cry from the moral reprobates they really were!
After the 28 seconds of medieval flava ‘Embryo’ provides we launch straight into ‘Children Of the Grave – at times this even beats out ‘Supernaut and ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ as my fave Sabbath track. I simply don’t want to know anyone who doesn’t throw their head back and just howl at the heavens as that opening riff slams home. I do; every single time I hear it. I just have to.
That’s all I can write there.
Master Of Reality gives us another minute and a half of Iomni faffing around beautifully on ‘Orchid’ before everything gets a bit cloven-footed on ‘Lord Of This World’. Sung from Satan’s point-of-view about a world ruined and ripe for harvesting, this track has always seemed like the dog’s diabollocks to me. Geezer’s bass playing is a fabulous supple beast and Ozzy really sings it at the edge of his range, giving it a real fervour. This just isn’t as big a song as it should be in the Sabbath canon.
‘Solitude’ is another real favourite, Iomni giving us some flute and piano in addition to the usual. I love how bereft and empty this song is, one of the best vocals Ozzy has ever given us – you can tell he could still feel back then, had an intact soul.
The world is a lonely place, you're on your own Guess I will go home, sit down and mourn Crying and thinking is all that I do Memories I have remind me of you
I like the subtle echo of the Doc’s verdict in ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ – ‘trippin’ and smokin’ is all that you do‘.
Fire up the spaceships! This planet is fucked and we’re damned if we’re going down with it!! ‘Into The Void’!!! The rhythm section gives this beast enough propulsion and thrust to break through the atmosphere and Iomni even gives us a touch of Jimmy Page late on. Cosmic.
So why don’t I play Master Of Reality more often? I have absolutely no idea at all. I should.
My copy of Masters Of Reality is a bit of a beaten-up NEMS reissue from 1976. I do rather like the way there’s candle wax on the front cover, hoping it was used in a moderately titillating occult ritual of some sort. I rather suspect though that the prosaic truth is that some long-haired ned called Derek just dozed off with it under his shelf.
1036 Down.
PS. I have absolutely no recollection of buying this LP at all, but I can see I bought it on the same day (7 April 1993) I bought Lou Reed’s chuckle-fest Berlin. I can only imagine the record emporium had sold out of Bobby McFerrin albums before I got there that day.
PPS: Inspired to do this one now thanks to Steveforthedeaf’s recent dalliance with the final track. Word up to the Hemel Hempstead massive.
*Sabotage not quite making the cut and the other 3 pre-Dio ones don’t exist for me.
**his last before Iomni seized the reins; the proletariat literally rising up and seizing the means of production.
^fun fact one of my aunties gave my parents a ‘Pope on a rope’ one Christmas (so designed so you could secure the soapy pontiff around a tap between baths – the rope went through his shoulders and so was more of a pun on ‘Soap on a rope’, than an extremist protestant solution).
^*true story, John Calvin (1509 – 1564) did actually try out for an early version of Black Sabbath, but opted to carry on bass duties for Uriah Heep instead.
One of my favourite Sabs — maybe my favourite of the entire Ozzy era? I’ll save that argument for another day. Ranking the Sabbath, whew, not a fun job.
However I must tell you, as beautiful as the LP is up close, the CD is better because you get a completely unreleased song called Weevil Woman ’71. There are very few completely unheard Sabbath songs, so that’s tremendous value. It’s a spunky rocker that sounds unfinished, but is otherwise completely enjoyable.
Ranking the Sabbath? Vol.4, then everything else! Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!
I get that Mike, I’ve been listening to the bonus tracks on Spotify. There is a 2017 reissue with the bonus tracks on vinyl though, bit pricey but ….
I like the weevil, evil transformation. Shame Dio never did Dream Weevil, or Diamond Head with Am I Weevil?
True story: this was my first proper grown-up LP. I was young, didn’t know what the hell it was, but my Mom came home with it one day saying a friend was clearing out stuff and did I want this? Imagine. Excellent writing, as usual, sir.
That’s amazing Aaron, way cool firstie. Mine was a BBC spoken word one of Robert Louis Stevenson ‘Kidnapped’ that I got for Christmas.
I was so disappointed, I wanted a boardgame.
It’d have to be the right board game, though. Not Monopoly, too divisive. Hungry Hungry Hippos?
I really wanted one called ‘Escape From Colditz’, which I never got. It’s why I’m a bitter twisted sort of chap today.
Yes but you are gainfully employed, right? With your own cash monies. You could get it now, get untwisted! Unless you also buy Twister, then you’re on your own.
It’s not the same Aaron. I prefer to just nurse the grievance now and revel in my own twisted hurt.
Ah, very healthy. Carry on. 😉
I’d go 1 -> 5 as me favourite, I think.
Great fun, Joe. Were those candlesticks a present last Christmas? Or something you knicked from the local Church of Satan Annual Fair?
Rarely has anyone been on such a compressed run of perfect form. Sprouting new genres with every track.
No those are my own ritual candlesticks, bought in France a long time ago. The sacrificial spork is a family heirloom, handed down from 1537 to 1537, since umm, 1537.
Between you and Steve we have a lot of great Sabbath reading. Good stuff.
Thanks John.
All of the first six have been my favourite Sabbath album at some point. As time goes on I gravitate more to the SBS/Sabotage end. But this is still a blueprint and masterpiece.
Wrong answer, the correct one is Vol.4.
I find Sabotage just such an incredibly dry sound. Great LP cover though.
You’re just well jell cause you can’t pull off the red tights look. Sabotage is gnarly as fuck.
Don’t! I’ll never be able to live down that time I tried the red tights without underwear … The cops made such a fuss.
That was only because you were outside that school, remember?
Remember? It’s ALL the papers wrote about. That and my compulsive womanising.
Here’s the praise: Reading this really (Really!) made me want to listen to this again.
Had you asked me in the late 1970s/1980s which was my favorite Sabbath of all time, Master of Reality would have been the answer hands-down (hands-up too!). Reading this post however, I realize that it has been over 4.5 years since I last listened to it. I can date that last listen; it was 26 February 2016 during my drive to New York City from Washington DC in order to see the reunited (sans Ward) Sabs at Madison Square Garden the next night. This realization rattles me. Your confession re your own similar lack of plays would obviously suggest the hidden influence of the U.S. Deep State conspiracy, although I am somewhat surprised at my prior lack of awareness given my own position in said conspiracy……. Hmmm…
“Fairies Wear Boots” is my favorite Sabbath song!!
I think it may have something to do with Hugo Chavez, a minor election official in Nevada and a server in the Ukraine, oh and pizza. There was definitely pizza involved in the reason.
Don’t worry, I’ll hold a press conference at my local garden centre to explain it all.
So this beats Vol.4 for you? wow, praise indeed. Those first four LPs are just so incredible, lightning in a bottle each and every one of ’em.
Fairies Wear Boots explains my unremitting love for you.
You misspelled ‘unrequited’… (winking face emoji)
Flirt!
John Clavin made a bad life choice.
To be fair he’s been playing bass in Uriah Heep for almost 500 years now.
You got this one on vinyl, yet?
lol Just preorderd the new Heep album “Buried Beyond Our Years” from Amazon!
I really want Look At Yourself.
Fantastic write up (thanks for the doff of the cap) she is a beauty of an album and your observations are bang on about their early moral compass. I really enjoyed reading that. My copy of Paranoid is a second hand NEMS pressing. No candle wax though \m/
Thanks fella. I really should play this more. They were a surprisingly moral bunch, in their lyrics at least!