Master of Reality

Great album - thanks !

Forget Nirvana and co; I believe it was Sabbath that invented grunge. Listen to the guitar sound on the opening song, Sweet Leaf and you'll know what I'm talking about!Embryo is a short Elizabethan style instrumental track, while Children of the Grave chugs along like a runaway train, and ends with the songs title being whispered quietly over some creepy guitar feedback. Orchid is another short instrumental acoustic guitar workout, but the track that follows it (Lord Of This World) must have been the template used by all the stoner rock and doom metal acts that were to follow many years later. Solitude; depending on which way you look at it, is either dark and depressing or a welcome quiet lull between the heaviness. Yes, that is Ozzy singing on the track and must be his most unusual vocal too. Quite naturally, the metal returns on Into the Void, and I've lost count on the number of metal bands who have copied the riffs and sound on that one.Master Of Reality may not be much of an album lengthwise, at just 34 minutes, but its impact has been immense. We've had rock bands naming themselves after the song titles on it (not forgetting the albums moniker). Its riffs and sound have been copied by, and influenced many heavy metal acts across the world. Grunge, doom metal and stoner rock probably wouldn't have existed without it. Even metal itself may not have progressed as much as it did if it hadn't been for Master Of Reality.

After the debut LP and the success they had with Paranoid, Sabbath were probably under pressure to come up with something new. Wouldn't surprise me if their record company wanted a more commercial approach and another hit single. Iommi and Butler had mastered the Heavy Metal Leviathan that they had single handedly created. They took the best moments from their previous releases, and came up with the most amazing riff filled album ever. Sweatleaf, After Forever, Children Of The Grave, Lord Of This World and Into The Void - 5 of the finest Heavy Metal songs ever written. Sure, they had to fill it out with some instrumental interludes and a (decent) ballad but if you want a place to start with Black Sabbath because you've heard the stories and you're not convinced with Paranoid, Master of Reality is for you. Osbourne's vocals are a marked improvement, the lyrics are great - it's just perfect. The band went on to make the excellent Vol 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage and the under rated Technical Ecstacy - All worth 5 stars. Keep coming back to Master of Reality - Children Of The Grave was one of the first Heavy Metal songs I ever heard and it changed my life. The Middle 8 section of Into The Void gives me goosebumps 30 years later! I review a lot of new stuff, I should be doing more of this!

Great band, great sound, good pressing. Does not arrive in the original cover design. The original was more of a slim box with a flip lid. I was disappointed upon opening but quickly changed my mind. The original gets squashed over time ending up flat thus defeating the object. Maybe that is why it is now issued in a standard cover. That or money. I remember a poster being included back in the 70's. There isn't one in the new copy. Worth buying for the last track. A gem!

From the very first cough that leads into that amazing doom-laden power riff of Sweetleaf (ode to pot), you're on an unrelenting 40 minute journey of the greatest heavy metal music ever recorded. This album is the peak of Sabbath, their 3rd, and the perfect place to start if new to this legendary group. I had the reissue NEMS vinyl in the late 70's which was sold with the rest of my albums 20 yrs ago. This heavyweight vinyl sounds amazing and is far better than the CD. Their next, Volume 4, is almost as good before the slow decline began on their subsequent albums (many of which are still excellent).

Carry on from Paranoid.

Does another review of Master of Reality really need to written? If you do not have this in your collection, what is wrong with you, buy it immediately, and if you have it in your collection you will not be reading this review.The only reason not to buy this particular remaster is that an enhanced version is now available with extras on, other than that, this CD makes good sense with insightful sleeve notes from Bill Ward, and the next best music after Paranoid.From Bill Ward hacking his lungs up as the intro to Sweetleaf until the final thundering chord of Into the Void, this album is one of the best Sabbath did (and they did not do a bad album in the Oz years), the highlights being After Forever (you just have to love a song that has the lyrics "Do you want to see the Pope on the end of a rope, do you think he's a fool?") and Children of the Grave, not about zombies or vampires, but about the now generation of 1970 having no future, title really throws you on that one, and Lord of the World (a song actually about Satan). A couple of oddities in Embryo and Orchid, very small instrumentals that seem to act as punctuation in the overall script of the album, and Solitude following on from the brilliant Planet Caravan to show they could do slow and gentle (and personally I think this is where Ozzy does his best vocal work, proving he could actually sing) and which would obviousley lead to Changes on Volume 4.An album I will always come back to, essential listenning for anyone who thinks heavy metal began in the 80's, no-one ever did it better than Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill.

Bought as a replacement for my original CD of this album which has finally started to skip - works fine and arrived as advised.