review by thomas

Sabbath took the concept of ”Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” even further (though less keyboard heavy) and on ”Sabotage” they sometimes play in the grey-zone between heavy metal and progressive metal. Heavy rockers such as “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe” give way to heavy epics as “Megalomania” and “The Writ”. The usual acoustic guitar piece is also present (“Don’t Start (Too Late)”) and an instrumental choir driven experiment (“Supertzar”), a song that quite usually gets butchered; I can’t for my life understand why, I find it surprising, mighty and above all good.

Then we have a little thing called “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” that was released as a single and also clearly written to be that, but that does not make the universal slaughter of the song justified as I expect many a people dislike it just from the fact that it was rather poppy and commercial. It is much more pop than we are used to, yes, and it is highly commercial, that’s true. But it’s Sabbath’s best single, no doubt about that. Earlier singles: “Evil Woman”, “Tomorrows Dream” and “Paranoid” are all inferior (no, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” wasn’t officially released as a single). “Thrill of It All” is the only bad song on this otherwise splendid record.

Another Sabbath and heavy metal classic, one that is up there with “Paranoid” and “Sabbath bloody Sabbath”.