"Break Out" is also an interesting song, taking the jazz approach further with a big band arrangement and brilliant saxophone solo. In particular, the song "Air Dance" is a refreshing break from the boring hard rock formula, taking in some unique jazz structures in a piece which could have fit into the band's 'prog' era easily. "Never Say Die!" is not without its merits, of course.
Even Ozzy's vocals- which had blown me away only years earlier with his delivery on "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Sabotage"- are strained and lifeless. Whether the blame may be pointed towards the muffled production or the paint-by-numbers approach to his rock riffs, Tony Iommi feels like a declawed lion here, his usual genius with the guitar clouded by ambivalence and 'x' number of different drugs they were taking at the time. Although it still shares Iommi's thick riffing style and Ozzy's nasal vocals in common with an album like "Paranoid", nothing really stands out as being impressive, or even that much enjoyable. "Johnny Blade" is a perfect example of how far Sabbath had fallen. Although Sabbath still manage to cobble together a functional collection of songs, the performance feels muffled, and the songwriting seemingly done out of obligation rather than inspiration. It's no secret that Black Sabbath had been going through some problems over the years leading up to this, and it's evident that the constant arguing and drug excess had gone too far. "Never Say Die!" continues this lackluster rock sound, although the music is arguably even worse off. Although it was no surprise to hear Sabbath doing something new in "Technical Ecstasy", their new, more straightforward hard rock style was void of both the heaviness and sophistication that defined each earlier album. Stylistically, Black Sabbath developed and tweaked their sound quite a bit within a few years, exploring heavy metal, progressive rock, and everything in between. Once again, Black Sabbath may not be total goners here, but they might as well be the band's eighth studio album is one that should be overlooked. Although it's relieving to know that Sabbath would yet release some great material with Dio, "Never Say Die!" is a whimper, arguably even less successful than "Technical Ecstasy". Of course, based on what I had heard from others, I was not expecting much different from "Never Say Die!", the last album Black Sabbath would do before being revived by the vocal talents of the late Ronnie James. The band's past work "Technical Ecstasy" wasn't necessarily a bad album, but in the context of following six classics of heavy metal, it could only disappoint. To that, I say give it a chance, and you may happen to like the faster SABBATH.īy this point in Black Sabbath's career, the album title seems to be a pretty spot-on indication of the band themselves realizing they were losing it. However, it is true that many people expect too much out of these early perfect-record bands such as DIO, or BLACK SABBATH. Many people say that this was a poor way for Ozzy to leave the band to let Dio take his place for a few albums, which may be true. A lot of the time, Ozzy's vocals and lyrics support the album through some rough patches, and seem to give new light to the said medium, allowing for it to come back with a much more solid and steadfast feel. Yes, there are some slower parts that definitely don't hold much water, but it other circumstances they can retain some enjoyability.
They concentrated more on putting heavy chords into the composition to make it sound more like their old music, yet also combining it with this new found feel Ozzy and the band discovered. The album still had pop-like notes and composition, however it was obvious they were trying to make a comeback from the last album. The album certainly did better than it's earlier sister album, but definitely not by much.
Two years later, however, they decided to come back with their 8th studio album, NEVER SAY DIE. BLACK SABBATH did definitely get a generally bad rep in that year. The album shocked many people that BLACK SABBATH would release such a mediocre recording such as this (seeing as they hadn't before now). They released TECHNICAL ECSTASY to horrible reviews. After two great SABBATH hits, SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH and SABOTAGE, the band seemed to want to take a temporary different direction with their music, by going at it with a more jazzy feel then the former.
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