BLACK SABBATH

"Past Lives"

Divine Recordings

Well this is a startling package that sort of came out of nowhere. Rarities of any sort out of the Black Sabbath vaults have been virtually nonexistent since the gothic metal band first started recording and performing over three decades ago. So here is "Past Lives", a two-disc set just out on Sharon Osbourne's Divine Recordings label, offering a nearly complete representation of all the songs Sabbath would have performed live had you been lucky enough to see them during their reign in the '70's (this writer was). There's everything from a wicked 1975 recording of Sabotage's "Hole In The Sky" to a twenty-something minute version of "Wicked World" from London in 1973 (where a young Tony Iommi scrambles around his fretboard like a tarantula lost in the desert, somehow completely entertaining us by practicing his scales at full volume), to a straight-from-the-womb "Hand Of Doom" recorded in 1970. There are a couple of places on "Past Lives" where the improvisations onstage might make you chuckle; if a guitarist tried to get away with a 25 minute jazz/blues solo in today's concert crowds, he'd probably see people streaming for the exits!

Disc one of the new Sabbath album is, well, not really "new" in the technical sense. Regular visitors to the Sabbath CD bin know that the recordings on disc one, taken from a pair of European concerts in 1973, have been available for years as the unauthorized "Live At Last", which was released without the band's consent. And for good reason, because the recordings suck! The first half of "Past Lives", the entire first disc, has such bad sound it's almost hard to believe, it's like "Sound by Radio Shack" or something! Although it's an improvement upon the original "Live At Last" album, there's only so much 'remastering' you can do with a bad live recording. So except for grooving on Iommi's aforementioned blues noodlings, you're just not going to get the cranial blood rush you'd expect from a vintage live performance by the heaviest band in the land. It's too bad, because I know for a fact they have much better live versions of "War Pigs", "Snowblind" and the rest that they're inexplicably holding back. I don't know, maybe they're waiting for me to die?

Now, Disc 2 breaks away from all that, although not right away. The embryonic version of "Hand Of Doom", from the Paranoid album, is entertaining, but the sound is almost as bad as on the previous disc, and on top of that, Ozzy seems to be making up the lyrics as he goes along! Still, Iommi rides in again to save the day with those sewing machine fingers of his, and "Hand Of Doom" turns out to be pretty cool after all. Seamlessly, the stark club recording from 1970 segues into a sold-out Asbury Park, N.J. Convention Hall, somewhere in 1975. Ozzy is introducing "Hole In The Sky", and the obvious difference in sound quality suddenly makes you sit up and reach for that volume knob. Holy crap, Sabbath in '75 were mean, and powerful, and… LOUD!

What a ride, man. The trip through the next three songs, "Hole In The Sky", "Symptom Of The Universe", and "Megalomania" is alone worth the price of admission to "Past Lives". Unusually for Sabbath, they seem to shake off the drug cloud that seemed to muck up many of their live performances back then, and they deliver a stunning, crystalline rendering of side one of their classic Sabotage album. By the time the last notes of the brilliant "Megalomania" rush past you, you just want to kick back and smoke a cigarette, even if you're a non-smoker, as R. A. Dion is… it's just sooo satisfying!

Unfortunately, after the three brain-bakers from '75, we are again hurled back in time to the not-quite-as-excellent Paris '70 show, where "Past Lives" wraps up with "Iron Man", "Black Sabbath", "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" and "Fairies Wear Boots". Impressive songs, masterpieces all of them, but I would have given my left, uh, shoe for that entire 1975 concert, never mind all this no-drum-riser-itty-bitty-PA stuff! Not that the other tunes on this album aren't good, or shouldn't have been released, but by including the Sabotage material the band has let the black cat out of the bag, and now we know they're holding out on us. Sharon! Open the vaults! Release the prisoners!!!

- R. A. Dion

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