The Angry Scotsman After releasing 2 epic albums, (including the genre defining "Paranoid") the fathers of metal release their third, "Master of Reality"

Here Black Sabbath don't add anything to their sound, in fact they just reinforced it. Tony Iommi who hurt his fingers long before detuned his guitar to relieve the tension, the result was an incredibly heavy sound unlike even the Sabbath albums previously. Bassist Geezer Butler followed suit.

Musically, "Master of Reality" is what we expect of early Sabbath: Heavy, mid tempo songs, bluesy guitar solos, complete with punchy bass and Ward's powerful drumming. Ozzy's powerful wail tops it all off.

There are some breaks: the almost classical sounding "Embryo", the acoustic ballad "Orchid" both of which are segues, and the full length song "Solitude". They are all nice, and "Solitude" is really a great song. Quiet, peaceful, and relaxing...filled with light guitar, flute, piano, and soft vocals. A nice change of pace and outright great song.

This is followed by the riff-tastic "Into the Void" which brings up a point that really doesn't even need to be mentioned, the riffing. While a true band effort, this album, (like any good metal album) is based on the riffs. Iommi's classic heavy metal riffing defines the album, some which are the best you'll hear.

Lyrically, things stay in the same general area, though note: "Sweat Leaf" is a powerful heavy metal love song about the plant that was obviously near the hearts of the band, while "After Forever" is actually Christian song, of sorts...posing various questions and portraying it in a way that is not in your face, and actually a bit ponderous. A nod to Butler's faith but perhaps also to help shake the notion of Sabbath being satanists.

"Children of the Grave" is another song about war, though unlike many metal bands of later, it's an anti-war piece. While "War Pigs" was more focused on politicians and those responsible, "Children of the Grave" is a bit more "hippieish".

"So Children of the world, listen to what I say, if you want a better place to live in spread the words today. Show the world that love is still alive you must be brave, or you children of today are children of the grave." OK, ends on a dark note but can't you see some long hairs with acoustics gently singing that? I can, except it's Ozzy and over a chugging riff!

An absolutely classic heavy metal album, this has it all. Awesome riffs, solos, powerful vocals, great songs. Not much else to say. Even for the band "Master of Reality" has a very heavy, sludgy, stoned sound, built around slow to mid tempo songs, which has influenced countless bands: Of course every heavy metal band, especially doom and sludge metal, stoner rock and even grunge. A truly important album that is as good as its legacy is huge.

Five Stars

Warthur The third Black Sabbath album saw the band attempt to diversify their sound a little, and so there's a bit less of the pure proto-doom sound of their debut on view here and a few more 70s hard rock cliches (Bill Ward even unleashes a little cowbell on Lord of This World). The album by and large succeeds simply by virtue of still being far heavier than anything else being produced at the time, with songs like Sweet Leaf, Lord of This World, and the thunderous Children of the Grave being particular highlights.

However, the album isn't perfect. It includes two small instrumental filler pieces - Embryo and Orchid - which I actually think are pretty decent (I can't think of Children of the Grave without having Embryo as a lead in to it), but others may take issue with. The band repeat the attempt to include a quiet song with the inclusion of Solitude, which unfortunately just isn't very good - it's over five minutes long and really needs to trim three of those minutes, it's a poor attempt at a flute-led melodic love ballad which fails to match up to the efforts of other bands working in the same vein (it reminds me a little of a poor attempt to mimic early Jade Warrior), and the lyrics are the sort of love poetry a self-important 13 year old might right.

Speaking of bad lyrics, the words to After Forever may irritate some listeners. The song itself is perfectly heavy, but the lyrics bash people who unthinkingly bash religion simply because they think it's the cool thing to do (which is fair enough - I'm an atheist myself but I think people should choose their religious beliefs because they've thought things through for themselves rather than to make a fashion statement), but then turns around and uncritically embraces Christianity as the answer to all man's ills.

The contradictory message ("Think for yourself and don't let others dictate your beliefs! By the way, Christ is the only answer.") will aggravate those who pay attention, so I advise just immersing yourself in the riffs and letting them flow over you. And the fact is that the downtuned sound of this album makes it the sludgiest disc of the Ozzy era. Like the debut album, Master of Reality deserves props simply because it introduced the world to a brand new sound which launched a whole subgenre or two of metal. It's just not quite perfect from beginning to end.

Pekka Most bands entering their second recording year are usually still a bit wet behind the ears, but Black Sabbath's first year saw them release two of the most legendary rock albums ever made. And it was only just the beginning. The hit-and-miss debut and the all-brilliant Paranoid have a worthy successor in Master of Reality.

Lasting only about 35 minutes, this album is at the same time very versatile and very focused. Usually when I think about the album I see it as a massive onslaught of heavy riff mastery, but when I take a second thought I remember the surprisingly lightly rocking After Forever with its equally surprising lyrics about a loving God, the two acoustic instrumentals preceding some of the heaviest tracks of the album, Embryo and Orchid, and the planetcaravanish ballad Solitude. That's four of the eight tracks on the album that deviate from my first and foremost picture of this album's nature. I don't know why exactly, but it happens every time still after years of listening.

The somewhat weird and twisted Embryo leads to a classic riff parade called Children of the Grave, which among other things shows that some extra percussion can add a great deal with little effort. Orchid is Tony Iommi at his most beautiful, whereas the next track, Lord of This World is as heavy as anything on any Sabbath album. As are the yay-for-drugs anthem Sweet Leaf and the album closing, thundering Into the Void. Great riff after great riff after an even better riff, all the time.

The band is on fire, the tracks are killer, classic Sabbath worth hearing. A lot of times.

Time Signature The lords of this world...

Genre: heavy metal

Yest another classic album by Black Sabbath, "Master of Reality" is not as heavy as the previous two albums, but it has a much dirtier sound and contains much more straightforward songs - still there is a certain darkness to it all.

Notable tracks are the opening track "Sweet Leaf" with its easily recognized main riff. "After Forever" is perhaps not as well known, but it contains a string of really nice metal guitar riff, each of which almost is a representative of its own present-day metal subgenre. "Children of the Grave" and the heavier "Lord of this World" and "Solitude" are among my favorite rock tunes, both of which, while quite different from each other, display the same darkness and all of them contain a plethora of engaging heavy guitar riffs.

This is yet another Black Sabbath album that should be part of any metal record collection.

bonnek Master Of Reality is one of Sabbath's most convincing albums of the Ozzy years. It will appeal to modern metal audiences for its dense and heavy doom attack, but it has more to offer then just that. Most of the songs have gone beyond the heavy blues of the first album and contain more complex arrangements and even some folk influences.

Sweet Leaf kicks things into action. Vintage Iommi riffing and Ozzy shouting against it. Works brilliantly. Very similar to Iron Man but less silly and much more convincing. On After Forever a light folksy tune fights with ultra heavy churning metal sections. This diversity make them appear even heavier then they are. Embryo is a great folk tune again on clean electric guitar and serves as an excellent introduction to Children of the Grave. Great percussion work here.

Orchid sets off side two with a gentle acoustic track. The songs that follow represent the pinnacle of Sabbaths 70's work. The songs here set the benchmark for all future doom bands. Lord of This World does it in a slow funeral tempo, Solitude with gentle guitars and flutes, Into the Void with vintage head-banging staccato riffing and eerie chanting. The variation between slow and fast will become a template for nearly every future doom metal album.

I wouldn't claim Master of Reality to be better then the preceding album but it simply works a lot better for me then Paranoid, which lacked a bit of punch and was uneven in the songwriting. Master of Reality is a doom masterpiece!

SouthSideoftheSky The masters of my reality!

After the pioneering but not quite perfect debut album and the somewhat uneven and transitional Paranoid came the utterly brilliant Master Of Reality that fulfilled all the evident potential displayed on the two first albums. Master Of Reality thus completed the band's progression from electrified Blues Rock to innovative Heavy Metal and the end result is not only one of my favourite Black Sabbath albums, but one of my favourite albums of all time by any band!

Master Of Reality is a rather short album but not one second is wasted, the album is simply packed with classic material from beginning till end. From the echoed cough that opens Sweet Leaf to the strange but fantastic riff that sounds almost like it is being played backwards on Into The Void, this album is nothing short of brilliant! One thing that I find utterly breathtaking about this music is its great sense of urgency. There are an abundance of great musical ideas that are crammed into such a short timeframe that there is not one single second of the album where I feel that they could have many it any better by bringing in more ideas. Every musical idea, every riff, every melody, every solo is exploited only to its full potential and never more than that. They never settle into a groove for too long, but instead move on the next great riff, the next short solo, the next break so quickly that you will not know what hit you. They never repeat themselves more than necessary on this album.

In typical Black Sabbath fashion there are many tempo and mood changes in these songs. It is clearly a mistake to think that a song must be long in order to be progressive. Indeed, many Psychedelic and Blues Rock bands of the 60's and 70's had very long songs, but they were often not the slightest progressive. Nowhere on Master Of Reality do they revert to Blues Rock or Jazz improvisation. Everything is well structured and performed with precision, but still with all the space needed for the musicians to breathe. There is not one moment of dullness.

I could probably write a whole essay on what I like about this album, but in accordance with the nature of the album I will try to be brief. The key to understanding the immense quality of this album is that you must judge the album as a whole. The two short guitar instrumentals, Embryo and Orchid, function as perfect mood setters for the heavier tracks in between them. And they give the whole album a conceptual feel, where the whole is even greater than the sum of the parts.

Another essential ingredient to this album's masterpiece status for me is its great variation. The two short instrumentals and the slow, spacy ballad Solitude allows the listener to catch his breath between the heavier, faster songs. Solitude, with its heavy use of flute has something of a Camel feeling to it, circa Mirage!

Children of the Grave features very unconventional and interesting drumming by Bill Ward and Geezer's distinctive bass lines shine throughout the album. He has here a very loud and bottom bass sound. There are some (uncredited) very discrete keyboards on the album as well, most notably on After Forever but also on Children Of The Grave, that adds great effect.

Master Of Reality is a real classic and Black Sabbath's first (but not last) masterpiece!

Extremely recommended!

Sean Trane After their first two stupendous albums, Sabs slightly altered their formula, shortened their tracks (none above 5 minutes), and sacrificed instrumental interplay in favour of tighter songwriting and further rifferama galore. A bland single sleeved artwork, announced the changes, but the main difference is that this album has a real production (as opposed to the two previous' relative absence of it, being much rawer) and IMHO, this actually hurts their creativity. But obviously this writer is in a minority as MOR became their best-seller and most influential album (along with Paranoid) and inspired generations of metal songwriters. By now, their move into a LA house and their gloomy semi-Satanist music and heavy drug use was attracting thousands of freaks at their concerts, including Hell's Angels crowned heads asking the band for audience and giving them their official stamp of approval. The drug use was even seeping inside the studios as Iommi spent entire days on end on this album.

Tight songwriting such as the Cannabis anthem Sweat Leaf (starting with a smoker's cough for intro) is Sabbath's signature for this album. But if the group had a blurred vision of the world, they had the occasional glimpse of insight as indicated by the other giant track of the album Children Of The Grave, addressed to their fans and their offcast behaviours, which was not the band's wishes. You can hear the Sabs hanging out on a sort of formula with Solitude being the obligatory slow track (as Planet Caravan and Sleeping Village had been), but there are the surprising acoustic tidbits Embryo and Orchid as well.

But to this reviewer, I can only think and cite another reviewer that said that Iommi was churning out the riffs by the ton with the warmth and care of a high-speed Xerox machine. I think that this album and Vol 4 (originally intended to be named Snowblind, but vetoed by the record company) reflect this quite well. As Butler and Iommi said later MOR was the beginning of their downfall through heavy drugs with Osbourne's erratic behaviour and Ward's Hepatitis lasting 6 months and a few cancelled tours.