This is, without a doubt, one of the toughest albums ever to
\nreview.<\/p>\n
You see, I have strong feelings about
\nTechnical Ecstasy<\/i>, the 1976 release from Black Sabbath – and
\nthose feelings straddle both sides of the fence. On one hand, this
\nis an album with which I have strong emotional ties, ever since
\nfinding a copy in the discount bin at Rolling Stone Records in
\nNorridge nearly two decades ago. There still are songs on this
\nrecord which make me smile and want to bang my head uncontrollably.
\nAnd yet, the critic in me sees the fact that this release
\nsymbolized a major changing of the guard for Tony Iommi and crew –
\nand in many ways, this doesn’t always seem like a Black Sabbath
\nrecord.<\/p>\n
Fellow reviewer Roland Fratzl, in his write-up of this album
\nsome time ago, praised Black Sabbath for taking a chance and not
\nconstantly sticking with the doom-and-gloom style which had defined
\nthe band to this point. After all, he said, at some point that
\nformula gets old. I don’t disagree with that line of thinking, nor
\ndo I think it was a bad idea for the band – guitarist Iommi, singer
\nOzzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer\/vocalist Bill Ward
\n– to tamper with things and give new ideas a try.<\/p>\n
After all, it
\ndoes<\/i> work in many instances. “Back Street Kids,” the opening
\ntrack, is one prime example, even up to the almost unintentional
\nending of the song. Such a stylistic move had been hinted at one
\nalbum earlier, with “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” off of
\nSabotage<\/i>. “You Won’t Change Me” is an interesting approach,
\ncapturing the spookiness of the music with a more subdued lyrical
\npattern – a little unsettling at times, but not a bad effort.
\n“She’s Gone” – not the first ballad Sabbath had logged under their
\nbelts – even suggests that this is a pattern that could work.<\/p>\n
Ah, but then there are the mis-fires. “All Moving Parts (Stand
\nStill)” is most definitely one of them, a plodding dinosaur that
\nnever seems to be able to get its weight up off the ground. Weak
\nlyrics, weak delivery from Osbourne, and a definitely weak rhythm
\nsection doom this one from the get-go. And while “Rock & Roll
\nDoctor” occasionally has some musical flash, it’s hardly one of the
\nband’s best efforts.<\/p>\n
Even the true experiment – having Ward sing on “It’s Alright” –
\nwell, if you didn’t know it was a Black Sabbath song, you’d find it
\nto be quirky and somewhat enjoyable. But coming between the eerie
\n“You Won’t Change Me” and the back-to-basics “Gypsy,” this track
\nreally sticks out like a sore thumb. Don’t get me wrong, the
\nperformance is quite good – but the placement of this track is what
\nultimately dooms it. Had the disc closed with it, I could
\nunderstand such a move.<\/p>\n
And yet, for all the critical notes I could slag at this disc, I
\ncan’t help but be drawn back to it now and again for repeated
\nlistens. Where albums like
\nParanoid<\/i> and
\nSabbath Bloody Sabbath<\/i> could easily remain in my CD player
\nfor months or years at a time,
\nTechnical Ecstasy<\/i> is one I get a taste for when I need to
\nclean out my musical pipes and go back to my younger days.<\/p>\n
Compared to
\nSabotage<\/i>, this album holds its own pretty well, but compared
\nto some of the classic early Sabbath albums,
\nTechnical Ecstasy<\/i> is almost like the bastard child from the
\nOsbourne era of the band. It’s by no means a throwaway album, but
\ndon’t expect demons to be oozing from the speakers with this
\none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5638],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37509","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-black-sabbath","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37509"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}