HEADLESS CROSS

After the release of the poorly received "The Eternal Idol" of 1987, and a tour that saw lackluster ticket sales, Black Sabbath took the year 1988 off and tried to figure out what was going wrong. In the meantime, Warner Brothers had dropped the band and Tony Iommi was trying to find another label. After I.R.S. promised him that since he was good at putting a record together, that he would pretty much have free reign at it, so he signed on with them. Needless to say, things were looking quite dire for the band at this time, but Iommi wasn't ready to give it all up. He was ready to rethink everything.

The first bright thing that happened is that drummer Cozy Powell had been asked if he wanted to join the band, and he agreed. It also looked like Geezer Butler was going to come back as bassist and Iommi wanted to also bring in Dio again for vocals. As we know, since the departure of Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath had become another classic band that had become a revolving door of members, and since there had been quite a bit of success with Dio, he had hopes that he could establish some stability. However, Powell talked Iommi into bringing Tony Martin back, who was the lead singer for "The Eternal Idol". This would also show some stability as he would be the first returning vocalist since Dio. As we know, Martin would eventually end up being the most stable vocalist in the band after Osbourne. Not only that, Martin's vocals were similar enough to Dio's that it wouldn't really change their sound that much anyway. At the last minute, Geezer Butler pulled out of the project to opt to playing in Ozzy Osbourne's band, so now they had to find a bassist. They were able to quickly recruit Laurence Cottlewho would end up not being an official member, but more like a studio musician for the album with Neil Murray (Whitesnake, Gary Moore) being the bassist for the tour to follow. So, with the usually unsung Geoff Nichols as keyboardist, the band was finally set.

One thing the band tried to help drum up more interest was the return to the occult and Satanic themes that they hinted at from time to time in the past. Thus, the new album, "The Headless Cross" would become the first album to totally be dedicated to that theme. Unfortunately, for the band, the public wasn't quite trusting of them yet, and the album once again suffered in sales. This was blamed on I.R.S. for not distributing the album very effectively. Iommi had visited a record store in Toronto, where the band was still generating interest, and discovered that there was issues with the album's availability. Of course, he was quite upset about this.

We can't really know for sure if that was the real reason for the unpopularity of the album or not. The album itself shies away from any progressive traits, though the songs, at least on the first side, have a very dark and heavy atmosphere to them which is a partial return to the classic sound of the band, but they were much more straightforward than they were in the 70s. They do have to be commended from turning away from the poppy, hair- metal sound at least. The first half of the album shows very strong hints of a band at least trying to make a heartfelt come-back. "Headless Cross", "Devil & Daughter" and "When Death Calls" are solid Sabbath songs and probably the best that the band had done for a while, at least since the "Heaven and Hell" album. Martin can hold his own with his vocals and Iommi's guitar work is quite good and a bit more inventive, plus Brian May from Queen makes a guest appearance on "When Death Calls".

The sad thing is, the 2nd half of the album sounds more like filler. The songs are a bit more lackluster and Martin's vocals are starting to lose their appeal as these songs sound too much the same, mid-tempo and more like filler. Even "Black Moon", which was originally written for an earlier album, which they re-recorded with Martin's vocals, sounds just like the rest of the songs on this side. They close the album off with the slower "Nightwing", but this doesn't help either. Most of the songs on this album fade-out at the ends with Martin doing his annoying improvisational singing which always leave a bad impression. There was an outtake that was used as a B-side for "The Headless Cross" single called "Cloak and Dagger" that was left off the album and this is added as a bonus track to the picture disc edition of the album. This song is actually better than any of the songs on the 2nd side and why they decided to leave this off while retaining some of the other less than interesting songs is beyond me.

Anyway, in summary, we have an album that starts out as a decent "approach" to normal (not really a return to normal) with some songs that generate interest and a 2nd half that sounds like half-hearted attempts that are overwashed in Nicholls background keyboards. This manages to get 3 stars for the album at least, and that is all because of the first side. It's too bad that following albums would for the most part follow the filler-type song pattern than the interesting songs making them even weaker at times. However, if you are looking for progressive metal, you won't find it here at all, nor would you among Black Sabbath albums to come after for quite a long time.