All of the band members have acknowledged that the writing of the album was different than it had been for Heaven and Hell. The initial writing of that album had been purely Tony and Ronnie, after Geezer had quit the band for a period, and was done in their lounge rooms with small amps in an intimate atmosphere. For Mob Rules, the band bought their own studio and soundboard in an attempt to save money and give them the time to come up with new material. With the noise turned up loud, not everyone involved found it a perfect way for writing, and so the writing didn’t come as naturally as it had for the previous album. It also created a different type of song for the album. Martin Birch was again producing, and there does seem to be a different bombarding within some of the songs on this album compared to the previous album. Sonically it is a much bigger and louder noise throughout, and with the lyrical matter being dragged further away from the darker side that the band sang about during its first incarnation, the band feels like a completely separate entity than the one that contained Osbourne and Ward – and this has been a disputed argument over the years, with those in the corner of the original band suggesting these albums should never be associated with the band name Black Sabbath because they are of such a different sound and focus than the first eight albums of the band’s discography. When this foursome eventually reunited under the name of Heaven and Hell many years later, many felt it was a much better fit than to have both Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, along with Dehumanizer 11 years later under the Black Sabbath label.
The band and Martin Birch have been accused of doing a carbon copy of Heaven and Hell when it comes to the style and arrangement of the tracks on Mob Rules. I’ve never really agreed with that statement, as to me the tracks here are in places more of a commercial bent than those on the previous album. Indeed, some of the tracks have been criticised for this, especially by Ozzy Sabbath fans. The second side of the album comes under the most scrutiny, particularly for the songs “Country Girl”, “Slipping Away” and “Over and Over”. “Country Girl” is seen as a similar track lyrically as “Lady Evil” from “Heaven and Hell”, and certainly comparisons can be drawn between the lyrical content of those two songs. “Slipping Away” is compared to “Walk Away”, and the closing tracks “Over and Over” and “Lonely is the Word” again are compared to be like for like. Now if you play both of these albums, and you then play these tracks next to each other, you can come to a conclusion that the formula in regards to the style of song being placed in the same order of the tracks of the album can be argued, and successfully. I can’t say that I have ever honestly thought about it much, as I just love both albums for what they are, but having thought about it for this album review I have to say that it is a fair point, that the success of the format of the previous album may well have ensured that a similar format was used for Mob Rules. Is that a bad thing? I wouldn’t have thought so. I’d have been more concerned about whether a similar number of songs where the mood and tempo is changed from the real big hitters of the album affects the overall enjoyment of said album. In this regard, that is a matter of personal taste.
I still like all three songs, but would I ever put them on a playlist for the car? Probably not. Do they compare to the outstanding tracks on the album? No. “Country Girl” is a song with the right groove and singable lyrics, but it was seemed a strange choice to me to be put into a live setlist, as Sabbath did for the Mob Rules tour. “Slipping Away” talks about regeneration, turning the page, starting over, and turns up the tempo further to keep the momentum of the album going. And “Over and Over” is such a typical Dio-written song lyrically that perhaps it doesn’t feel as though it fits a Black Sabbath album – but my word I love this song. Emotionally and emotively Dio’s vocals here are truly magnificent, soaring to the heavens and stealing the show, before Tony’s amazing guitar solo that goes on forever to play the song out is an underrated and often forgotten moment of brilliance in his amazing career. Yes, it is much like the album closers of Dio first two solo albums that were yet to come, but it is a brilliant piece of music and song writing.
So there are moments here that are challenged as being ‘great’ or ‘subpar’ - but let’s look at the remainder of the album. The opening salvo of “Turn Up the Night” kicks the album off in perfect fashion, a great riff from Tony and Dio jumping in from the outset with his anthemic vocals charging along. “Voodoo” is a moody and slower tempo follow up, and a track that is also vastly underrated as a song in the Black Sabbath catalogue. It is one that is often overlooked when discussing Sabbath songs, but to me has always been a terrific one. This then moves into the first of two epic tracks on the album, the amazing “The Sign of the Southern Cross”, an amazing song which features Geezer Butler’s remarkable experimenting on the bass guitar, drilling up sounds that are the base track of this song. The changing mood of the track from quiet and reflective to loud and hard mirrors the bobbing of the ocean, and always makes me think of that whenever I hear the song. The entire song is a triumph and remains one of their best. This then segues into “E5150”, the instrumental pause before the busting opening guitar riff of the title track “The Mob Rules” rips in and sets off another burst of energy and Iommi riffing goodness. This is the song that Heaven and Hell opened with as they toured the world in the late 2000’s, and what a way to open a concert.
That leaves the only song I haven’t yet mentioned, a song which to me is perhaps one of my favourite ten songs of all time. It is “Falling Off the Edge of the World”, which sits comfortably between the high energy of “Slipping Away” and the genius completion of “Over and Over”. The song builds from the opening words with atmospheric keys to the hard core drums, bass and guitar, and then once again into the solo riff that opens the gates, and the band is unleashed into the fury of the main song. Vinny holds the beat together on the drums as Geezer dominates with the underlying bass riff and Ronnie powers through the range of his vocals and smashes the song to send shivers down the spine, before Tony breaks into his solo piece that raises the song to its peak. I personally think this song is a masterpiece, with all four members of the band contributing heavily to the greatness of the track.
I didn’t find Black Sabbath and all of those bands until some years later after this release. 1986 was my real awakening to heavy metal music, and perhaps amusingly enough when it came to Black Sabbath the band, it was the Ronnie James Dio fronted albums that caught my ear first. As a result, it was both Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules that became my go to albums when it came to Black Sabbath. Now while Heaven and Hell was certainly the star, Mob Rules was the album that always felt bigger, harder, heavier and with more energy. Maybe I just played it with more bass on my stereo, or perhaps it was the differing styles in the drumming between Bill Ward and Vinny Appice that brought about the slight nuances in the songs between both albums. Whatever it was, even the three songs that may be considered the forgotten tracks of the album always sounded bigger and brighter than the ones off the previous album.
This album, along with so many of my discoveries over those couple of years at the end of high school, was massive for me. Each song is imprinted in my mind and still stirs memories of those days each and every time I put on the stereo. Everything about it is pure magic. Vinny’s drumming seals the songs tight. It might be uncomplicated, or at least sound that way, but it is the basis of everything that comes over the top of it. Geezer’s bass work is truly amazing as it always had been and always is, and the riffs he plays acting as a second guitar are still incomprehensible. How can this band have such a deep and full sound with just a guitar and a bass? Tony lights up the album again with his guitar riffs and solos, and it is a joy to hear the best of him on every song after the relative disappointments on the last two Ozzy-fronted albums. And I will never have enough superlatives to describe Ronnie James Dio’s vocals let alone his song writing ability.
I will always wonder what could have come if this foursome had stayed together instead of breaking up following the tour for this album. Reasons for the break up have varied, with stories about Dio sneaking in to the studio for the mastering of their live album that followed this, Live Evil, in order to raise the vocals in the mix, having been hosed down a little in recent years. In the long run, it appears that whereas Tony and Geezer had been in control of the band in the past, they were not ready for someone like Ronnie to come in and want a similar amount of say in what happened in and out of the studio, and it eventually caused the split. Ronnie and Vinny went on the form Dio and record Holy Diver, another of those albums that I devoured during 1986, while Tony and Geezer eventually brought in Ian Gillan and recorded Born Again. I still enjoy the Born Again album, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Holy Diver. Just what kind of follow up to Mob Rules could these four have produced if not for their egos? Perhaps the Dehumanizer album ten years later actually is the answer to that question.
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