BLACK SABBATH — Headless Cross (review)

BLACK SABBATH — Headless Cross album cover Album · 1989 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
bonnek
I've always liked the Sabbath period with Tony Martin. The music had a big and heavy epic feel, splendid melodies and admit it, an excellent singer. In the high octave range of metal vocalists, he rules easily.

There is little to remind us this is still Black Sabbath though, it's rather a heavy take on Rainbow, especially with Cozy Powell's commanding drum sound and Tony Martin’s emotive and heavily Dio-influenced voice. Ok, he doesn’t have the words ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Evil’ and ‘Fire’ in every track and he goes clearly a tad higher and cleaner, but apart from that, Dio all over.

Some of the tracks lean too much towards commercial 80s metal. Tracks like "Kill In The Spirit World" and "Call of the Wild" are ill-advised to say the least. But at other moments this album rules with its straightforward and direct (not to say overstated) emotional appeal. "Headless Cross", "Black Moon" and "Nightwing" are massive power metal anthems. A style of music I don’t like at all normally, but it’s good to hear some of the songs that started it off.

"Headless Cross" isn't entirely consistent but it's a great album in its style.
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