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.