At the time that this album was being recorded, the band had reached a point where something probably had to change. Black Sabbath had one album remaining on their deal with their record company I.R.S. The rumours of a reunion of the band’s original lineup had been swirling since their short moment together at what was supposed to be Ozzy Osbourne’s final tour in 1992. While that didn’t appear to be getting any closer to being resolved through the various managers and lawyers, there was a sense that this album was a means to clear the decks in a manner of speaking. Vocalist Tony Martin in an interview some years later actually spoke of “Forbidden” as a (and I quote) "filler album that got the band out of the label deal, rid of the singer, and into the reunion, but I wasn't privy to that information at the time".
Perhaps, in aid of this, the band decided to utilise Ernie C as their producer for the album, who was better known as the guitarist for Body Count. Even at the time it seemed a strange decision. In an interview twenty years later, Iommi said, "We were pushed into a corner. Somebody at the record company suggested we work with Ice-T. My reaction was, 'Who the hell is he?' But we met up and he was a nice bloke, and also a big fan of Sabbath. Ernie C ended up producing Forbidden, which was a terrible mistake. Ernie tried to get Cozy Powell to play these hip-hop-style drum parts, which quite rightly offended him. You don't tell Cozy Powell how to play drums." Beyond this, the writing and recording of the album all felt a bit haphazard, and not truly a band situation. Iommi said “One of the problems was we weren't all there at the same time, when we were writing it. Cozy and Neil were still contracted to do other stuff, so it ended up with just Tony Martin, Geoff Nicholls and myself just jamming around and putting ideas down. It all came together very quickly, and we didn't have time to reflect: to make sure it was the right songs and the right way of doing it."
If the record company and the band was looking for a way to spice things up for this album by bringing in the rap metal element, then they get it in spades on the opening track. “The Illusion of Power” ramps up old school Sabbath doom with Iommi’s guitar and riff. It’s a callback to earlier days, with other elements like Martin’s mixed range vocals and then a spoken word element from guest performer Ice-T in the middle of the track. It has always felt out of place. You can understand a band trying to mix things up, especially by this stage of their career, it just doesn’t come together in a way that enhances the album or kick it off on the right foot. “Get a Grip” follows with a fairly typical late era Iommi riff and vocal styling from Martin. The underlying riff barely changes throughout, the tempo sticks to the same, and Martin’s vocals hold to their values. The only real significant change in the song are Tony’s two solo breaks, both fairly short and sweet. There’s more digging in the past with “Can’t Get Close Enough” which has very close audible connections to the “Volume 4” album. Again, it is a simple guitar riff over the standard rhythm from bass and drums, leaving Martin to croon over the top. It is effective but simple, not looking to reinvent the wheel but perhaps looking to invoke nostalgia as its purpose.
“Shaking off the Chains” takes a while to get going, starting off like a late 1960’s chant-singing track without the added psychedelia that would have been added in if it had been from that era. But then we get going, Cozy attacks with double time drums, and Iommi follows with a ramped up riff and solo passage, and Martin climbs into his vocal delivery in a far more formidable fashion. It is a shame that the song fades out rather than ending in a flourish, but then what would I know.
“I Won’t Cry for You” dials everything back, coming regrettably close to a Black Sabbath ballad, a song that sounds like it took about five minutes to compose in the studio, and then stretch it out beyond five minutes to help with the length of the album. Maybe not a throwaway track as such but one that doesn’t have much about it. It is followed by the far more energetic “Guilty as Hell” which settles into its groove from the outset and holds there. It’s a good riff and solid rhythm throughout, but Martin does offer us a little bit more on vocals here, a slight change up from previous tracks. It is an interesting song rather than a brilliant one. “Sick and Tired” is immediately an ear grabber, with Iommi finding a riff and rhythm more reminiscent of the Headless Cross / Tyr era of this band, which lifts the mood of the album. Both of the Tony’s offer a better sound here, Martin’s vocals much more in his preferred range and style, soaring a little more than he has allowed himself in the first half of the album, and Iommi’s gets more involved out of the slow riffing and allows his soloing to flow and soar in a much better manner.
“Rusty Angels” is a pure Soundgarden song, both musically with the bridge into the chorus, and also in many places vocally from Martin. It seems inconceivable that it couldn’t have been written this way for a reason, given it was 1995 and Soundgarden was close to ruling the world alongside Alice in Chains at the time. The song is great, but it is the method behind it that feels like it is dirty to enjoy it.
The title track “Forbidden” finds a groove again, and maintains it through to the end of the track. It is a simplified track, one that is pleasant enough and enjoyable enough to listen to but doesn’t seem like a stretch for these five in the slightest. Then we come to the album’s closing track “Kiss of Death”, a good song that channels the best parts of this formation of the band. It has the breakdown in the middle that showcases Martin’s great vocal qualities in particular.
A quick mention here to the Japanese bonus track that is not an actual part of this album, “Loser Gets It All” which is arguably better than any of the song that made the cut for the album. How does this not get a look in on the actual album?! It has all the pieces that make this version of Sabbath its best, but is only a bonus track. Amazing.
“Forbidden”, released in the black hole year of 1995, got zero attention from me at the time, and by the time I was thinking about buying wholesale music again it had passed into the ether. Unlike the “Cross Purposes Live” album and video, which had received a prominent display at Utopia Records when I had visited, I barely saw this album on the shelves by the time I was returning to check out their merchandise. The album fizzled and I barely thought of it in any shape and form. The reunion occurred and fizzled, basically becoming a cover band at Ozzfest every year. But then the OTHER reunion happened, the one with Dio and Appice, and the formation of Heaven and Hell. And although “Forbidden” was on another plane in the Black Sabbath story, this reunion actually made me for the first time think “I wonder what that last album they did with Tony Martin was like?!”, and so I decided to track it down. And when I finally got a copy of it and listened to it... it was horrible! The opening track just stuck in my craw, and I had trouble getting past it. I hated the way the album sounded. It just seemed to miss the point of the best versions of Black Sabbath, or perhaps even more pointedly the best parts of what THIS VERSION of Black Sabbath was like. It went for the doomier side of the band’s sound but without really thinking about how that fit in with Murray on bass instead of Iommi and Martin on vocals instead of Osbourne and Powell on drums instead of Ward. Now obviously that is a writing problem, but production wise it always seemed out of kilter with what you expected from the band. It didn’t sound right, either musically or in production and mixing. Suffice to say that it moved back onto the shelves and sat collecting dust. Tony Iommi, for a decade or more, made noises that he would like to remix the album and give it the sound that he felt it deserved. In 2024, this came to pass with the release of the “Anno Domini 1989–1995” box set re-releasing four of the Tony Martin-helmed albums, including Iommi’s remix of “Forbidden”. And for me two things were obvious. Firstly, this sound of the remix was infinitely better than the original had been. And secondly, I found the songs on here far more palatable on a more recent listen. Is that just a brain block thing? That I had convinced myself that the production was the problem on the original release, and that now it has been magically fixed? Or am I just older and in a better place to appreciate the songs on this album away from when I first heard them? I did play the two version back-to-back and the quality of the remix is very noticeable. Beyond that, perhaps not prejudging the album now has been of benefit to my enjoyment of it.
Is it magically better than when I first discovered it? No. It has its flaws. It’s not a perfect album. But it is one that I have enjoyed much more over the last 12 months having gotten the vinyl box set. And this past week has been no exception. And it was the end of an era. 30 years on, and as I am recording this episode, we are very soon to witness what is apparently the final performance of the band Black Sabbath in Birmingham. Just how that goes is anybody’s guess at this stage, but it will finally put the pin the band that created what has come since. And this album signalled the end of the Martin era, one that still splits opinion 30 years on.
This lineup of the band often gets a raw deal from fans. The suggestion that they are not Black Sabbath gets the same shrift from me as those who say that about the Dio Appice version of the band. Eventually they called themselves Heaven and Hell for their final album (though, if Dio had not passed away, how many more albums may they have produced?), and categorising this lineup in particular of Iommi Martin, Powell, Murray and Nicholls as Headless Cross may have taken out the stigma attached to the band and their music and allowed it to be judged on its merits rather than as a consequence of the name Black Sabbath. To me, they are all Black Sabbath, but there is so much wonderful material that came from the Tony Martin era, alongside the other marvellous musicians that played their part on the five albums he was involved in, it is still a shame to this day that they aren’t more highly rated. Personally, I enjoy all of those albums. Yes, even this one. It may rank as #17 out of the 19 Black Sabbath studio albums on my list, but there is still enough here for the fan of any era to enjoy.
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