During this hiatus, Ozzy Osbourne was producing his next solo album, which would eventually be called “Down to Earth”. For Tony Iommi, guitarist, founding member and only member of the band who had been a part of every album released by Black Sabbath, the time here he utilised to finally released his somewhat long overdue solo album. There had been other attempts to do this over the preceding years, most memorably in 1984 with the “Seventh Star” album that he wanted to release under his own name, but was overruled by the record company. That album was so unlike Black Sabbath – because it had been written as a solo album, not a Black Sabbath album – that it almost killed off the name at that point. Now though, his opportunity arose. Everyone believed that Black Sabbath was going to write and record a new album with the original members, so there was no need to try and convince Iommi to release his own album under that band name. He could finally just be himself. Overall, it took five years to put this album together, starting back from the release of “Forbidden” until the turn of the new century. And while it may not be the perfect iteration of what an Iommi solo album could be, it made for an interesting addition to the albums released in the year 2000 with the eponymously titled “Iommi” showing us a side of the great riff master that we hadn’t seen nor heard before.
What Tony and his producer mate in Bob Marlette have put together for us here is a compilation album of sorts. Ten different vocalists have contributed their talents to singing, writing and lyrics for the ten songs on the album. Iommi and Marlette came up with the song structures, and with the involvement of each different vocalist crafted a unique track as a result. And each song here is truly unique, such that I do still call this a compilation album rather than a solo album. Because there is no direct lineage between the tracks on this album. There is no real central theme or drive through the songs of the album. The fact that the material was brought together over a five year period and then utilises so many different talents from different genres of the music world, means that the album changes with each track. It is something that takes getting used to when you listen to the album. And it is true that you also have to actually drag your focus away from the fact that this ISN’T a Sabbath album, it is an Iommi project album. But if you take the time to get used to the changes, and not just write it off after one listen, you will find some interesting and ingenious gems in the mix.
One thing that does come to the fore is the music here. It is very much influenced by the era, so expect the lower doom tempo to come to the surface. And each vocalist does of course have their own interpretation of the song which influences how the song moves along.
The opening of the album is met with the energy and persistence of Henry Rollins with "Laughing Man (In the Devil Mask)" and a great riff from Iommi to kick things off. Rollins hits this track with his usual bounding energy, and Iommi’s guitar mimics the sound of the era of music, allowing the track to not only be obviously Iommi in nature but suitable to fans of the post industrial 2000’s. A great opening track. This is followed by “Meat” which features Skunk Anansie vocalist Skin and Martin Kent on additional guitar. Skin gives a great performance here, the slow death tempo and mood of Iommi’s guitar is a great platform for her to showcase her terrific vocals. Iommi’s solo break through the middle of the song is fabulous, typically Tony Terrific. “Goodbye Lament” combines some of the giants of the industry, with Dave Grohl performing both vocally and on drums on the track and Iommi’s long term friend Brian May adding additional guitars alongside him. It’s a completely different style of track than you would expect from this trio – expectations would have been for a faster tempo track with great energy that allowed Grohl to utilise his vocal range and drumming skills, and give Iommi and May something to play off against each other. Instead it sit sin the morbidly slow category without a lot of extra pizazz outside of the rhythm riff of the track. For me it is a missed opportunity to produce something special.
“Time is Mine” is a true doom metal track with the master of the genre at the helm on guitar, and one of the better exponents of it vocally here in Phil Anselmo. The moody quieter opening of the track to increase into the louder and exponentially more energetic and aggressive sound through the song is amazing, and Tony’s solo tops it off in style. Anselmo can often go over the top when it comes to his vocal style, over accentuating the growls and screams in response to the music beneath him, but here on “Time is Mine” I believe he does a superb job, it is just the right amount of Anselmo to make the song work beautifully. Great power from both his vocals and the music. “Patterns” is disturbingly good and unexpected in many ways. With Serj Tankian at the wheel on lead vocals, this could have gone in any number of ways musically. But what we get here is a slightly untypically restrained performance from Tankian, we get his usual throat warbles and incredible rise and fall of his unique voice, but all within the walls of the track itself. He doesn’t try to make it something it isn’t; he sits within the Iommi song structure and expresses himself to the outer extremities of that bubble, but not beyond it. Tony’s moody riff throughout perfectly suits Tankian’s diatribe, and this song is another triumph on the album.
Follow up this with another uniquely credentialled voice in Billy Corgan, one everyone recognises immediately, and you wonder what he’s going to do with an Iommi riff. As it turns out, a fair bit! Corgan has always been a metal fan, so bringing his style of music to Iommi’s is a fascinating experiment and experience. The way these two work together to weave their individual styles into this track, “Black Oblivion” is just fabulous. This is the only song where producer Bob Marlette is not involved in the writing process, it is simply these two tracking together to find the hybrid of Sabbath and Pumpkins that really works. And the final two minutes of Iommi's winding guitar riff with beautiful complementing bass guitar from Corgan is the topper.
Another fascinating collaboration is on “Flame On” with Ian Astbury, the former goth rock vocal king with the doom metal riff master, supported by former Sabbath bass player Laurence Cottle and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron. Cameron’s drumming suits the song perfectly, Astbury playing dual vocal lines and that heavy Iommi riff settled in an almost typical tempo that The Cult play in is superbly put together. The great man himself in Peter Steele makes his appearance on the terrific track “Just Say No to Love”, bringing his amazing vocals to this track that Iommi has written perfectly to suit him. Not many people can sing in a lower register than Iommi tunes his guitar, but Steele is one of those people, and the change between his vocal being lower than guitar and then reversing that halfway through the track is excellently executed, and the subtle silences with just bass guitar and drums between the verse sounds so good.
Perhaps the most interesting and least interesting song on the album is “Who’s Fooling Who”, featuring Ozzy on vocals as well as Bill Ward on drums. So, we have three of the original Sabbath, but no Geezer? I mean, Geezer doesn’t appear anywhere here, with most of the bass coming from Laurence Cottle who played on the “Headless Cross” album. I guess the expectation was that they would soon all be together and writing a new album, so it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Beyond that – this just isn’t a track with much going for it. Ozzy was putting together his own new solo album at this time so perhaps he wasn’t looking to contribute a lot to another project. There doesn’t appear to be much energy being used up in the song’s production. And it really misses Geezer’s bass guitar. The album wouldn’t have missed this track if it had been left off.
The album concludes with “Into the Night” which features Billy Idol, who sounds surprisingly good in this environment. It is another very doomy track from Iommi, and Billy sings it with gusto and his usual enthusiasm. When it breaks into the faster riff halfway through the song it gets even better. This is a great song to complete this fabulous selection of tracks, and the showcasing of great vocalists getting the chance to work with a great guitarist and songwriter.
I have no recollection of how I found out that this album was going to be released. Hot Metal magazine had folded by this time, I didn’t have the internet at this point in time, and any other information I could have used would have required money, which I also didn’t have a lot of at this point in time. Still, I must have discovered it some way, because I remember getting it from Utopia very soon after its release date. Which is a good thing, because finding it anywhere on either physical media or on streaming services in the modern day is an extremely difficult thing to do. So my CD copy gets its use.
When I first got it, I remember being excited about what it may contain. I was looking forward to the kind of material Tony Iommi might compose away from the burden of the Black Sabbath legacy. And it is fair to say that this is not an Iommi riff fest if that is what you are coming in for. It is an album with lots of great songs, and has some excellent rhythm riffs from Iommi and the odd old time solo, but for the most part Iommi is producing a lot of riffs in a similar doom standard, and then creating the songs out of that mood according to the other artists involved in the track. And there is an argument that could be mounted that all of the songs drag on a little long. 4 to 4.5 minutes is plenty for these compositions, and yet six of the songs stretch beyond that length.
I enjoyed this album for what it was when I bought it. As I have mentioned earlier, it is fractious in the way that these songs are not written with the focus on the whole album, they are written as individual pieces with different artists and then pieced together to create the album. That does make it a difficult listen in places. And once that listening cycle was over, the CD went on to my shelves, and has only come out intermittently since. And I guess that is because to me it is almost like a greatest hits album, where I would rather listen to an album rather than one that contains the so-called best songs. This of course isn’t a greatest hits album, but with the different artists involved, it has that kind of aura about it.
Listening to it again over the past couple of days, I have been pleasantly surprised by how well it has held up. There are some really good tracks on this album, and maybe not surprisingly it is the ones that would have expected to get all of the attention that are less exciting. “Goodbye Lament” and “Who’s Fooling Who”, with Dave Grohl at the height of his popularity and Ozzy Osbourne on the verge on a return to Black Sabbath recordings, were the two songs that were most heavily promoted at the time, and who many would probably come to this album for, and while they are still okay they don’t offer as much as might have been expected. But for the most part everything else is still an enjoyable listen.
The Sabbath reunion album never eventuated, not at that time anyway. All sides felt it was too hard to write together, and they went off their own separate ways while still meeting up to play at Ozzfest every year. Iommi himself came out a few years later and put together a much better solo effort alongside Glen Hughes called “Fused” - an album that we’ll get to a little further down the path.
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