Retro Review: Black Sabbath ‘Sabotage’ – 50th Anniversary
July 28th, 2025 marked exactly fifty years since Black Sabbath (it’s likely if you’re reading this, Sabbath need no introduction, but for those who are way, way, WAY at the back, The Riff Lord Tony Iommi on all guitars, Geezer Butler, the rumbler, on bass, Bill Ward, the king of the crash-and-bash on drums, and finally, the legend, himself Ozzy Osbourne on vocals/madness) released the final, of their much-revered, un-matched, first-six-album run, Sabotage.
From the beginning of the year, I knew this golden anniversary was approaching, and I was excited at the prospect of being able to write a comprehensive, look-back review of the album that I consider the crown jewel of Sabbath’s godly, six-album run.
Starting with their earth-shaking, multi-genre-defining debut Black Sabbath (1970), their initial break-through, Paranoid (1970), the mountain-moving, colossal Master Of Reality (1971), the cocaine-fueled, California-made, clinic in guitar riffs and tone, in addition to off-the-rails drumming that is Vol. 4 (1972), the psychedelic, experimental riff vortex of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) all before, what I consider the pinnacle of Ozzy-era Sabbath, the inflection point where it all comes together before they start to disintegrate, with Sabotage.
It was announced in early February of this year that the legendary frontman Ozzy Osbourne, despite battling an array of physical ailments, really beginning with his 2003 ATV crash and up to, and including a 2020 Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis, to say nothing of the damage he’d done to his body through decades of the rock and roll lifestyle, was going to give an all-star, final performance with his solo band, and yes, Black Sabbath, this time featuring original drummer Bill Ward, who had sat out the last reunion which resulted in 2013’s 13.
Ozzy had always expressed regret about Ward’s absence on the 13album and tour cycle, so the Back To The Beginning event, held on July 5th, 2025, at Villa Park, in Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham, England, in the neighborhood of Aston, home of their beloved Aston Villa FC, was truly an epic, one of a kind event, as most of metal’s most legendary bands and musicians, including Metallica, Slayer, Tool, Anthrax, Alice In Chains, Lamb Of God, Mastodon, and many others gathered to perform, and pay tribute to Ozzy and Sabbath’s world-conquering, decades-spanning influence, as the true originators of heavy metal, which, for this writer, cannot be debated, but that’s a discussion for another time.
And, as we all know by now, Ozzy Osbourne, one of the single most iconic and legendary performers in the history of not just rock and roll, but music in general heartbreakingly died on July 22nd, 2025, a mere twenty days after his farewell, made it all the more devastating, knowing Ozzy, off his medication so he was lucid enough to perform, held out till the end to say goodbye to his beloved fans.
Despite the crushing, devastating loss to heavy metal and music in general, this is not a eulogy for Ozzy, but a look back at the album many consider to be the peak of his vocal capabilities, certainly with Black Sabbath. The fact the record was made at all is amazing in itself. Their manager throughout the ’70s heyday, Patrick Meehan, essentially ripped them off blind, on every level, as he, not the band members, owned the houses and the cars. It was he, not the band, who profited from record sales and live performances.
A notorious instance of Meehan’s treachery was releasing the classic compilation album, 1976’s We Sold Our Soul For Rock ‘N’ Roll, without the band’s consent or input in any way, and, not surprisingly, they didn’t make a dime off the release. By the time Sabbath got wise to what was happening, Meehan had them in litigation, tying up the recording and release of Sabotage. The title of the album derives from the fact that they felt Meehan was trying to ‘sabotage’ their career.
Despite it all, the four came out guns blazing, full of piss and vinegar, anger and frustration, as they blast the record open with the atmosphere-exploding, aptly titled, riff and rhythm behemoth that is Hole In The Sky. Anchored by Ward’s now-famous, behind-the-beat swing and Butler’s iron-fisted rumble, Iommi unleashes one of his heaviest and most crushing riffs. By the time Ozzy enters the picture, his voice, as noted, never-sounding better, literally tears a proverbial ‘hole in the sky’. One of rock’s truly great album openers, heavy metal or non-such, Black Sabbath quickly establish there will be no fucking around on Sabotage.
The band then give the listener a brief reprieve with the acoustic interlude that is Don’t Start (Too Late) before Iommi drops one of the all-time, heaviest, and most menacing riffs ever laid to wax as he introduces the immortal Symptom Of The Universe, and when Butler and Ward join The Riff Lord, the end result is a proto-thrash metal rager of the absolute highest-order. Ozzy’s anguished howl, with just a hint of aggression, dances over the planet-destroying rumble his bandmates have collectively conjured.
However, as they were in a bit of an experimental phase, as witnessed on both the predecessor to this record, 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and the follow up, 1976’s Technical Ecstasy, it’s not all riff-battering, as when the band come flying out of the up-tempo breakdown, featuring all sorts of dizzying Iommi shred, at the 4:23 mark, they drop into a cosmic acoustic outro and as the band space-out behind him, Ozzy’s one of a kind voice takes front and center, and it’s fair to wonder what a full-on, acoustic-ish Sabbath set might’ve sounded like. Iommi really lets loose here, and it’s such a cool and different dynamic for him, and I, for one, have always been here for it.
We’re essentially two songs in, plus one interlude, before we reach what I consider to be the centerpiece of the album, and one of Black Sabbath’s best, and most underrated tracks in Megalomania. This is a slow burn, a creepy crawl, a descent into heavy metal madness, as the band take their time, steadily and eerily building the track with Iommi’s tripped out strumming and noodling, Ward’s cymbal taps, Geezer’s sparse bass notes, as an anguished Ozzy wails about the deterioration of the protagonist’s mental health, begging for people to get out of his life (Meehan?) and to be left alone. Again, his one-of-a-kind voice conveys a desperation and a hysteria that transports the listener into his mindset, especially with the second verse as the word ‘obsessed’ is repeated and echoed multiple times, underscoring the protagonist’s journey to madness.
Black Sabbath quickly establish there will be no fucking around on Sabotage…
At the three-minute mark, the aural build comes to a climax, complete with some piano key bangs and cowbell knocks which herald The Riff Lord as he unchains one of his mightiest, heaviest, nastiest riffs in band’s entire musical canon, and by the time Ward and Butler join him, the end result is one of the all-time greatest heavy metal marches ever laid to wax. When Ozzy joins his bandmates, he sounds as though he’s completely in the grip of mania, his voice, always awesome, no matter the circumstances, hitting some insane notes that are wrapped in a frenzy not heard at this level before. For this writer, it is the pinnacle of Black Sabbath’s long-form epics.
From there, we move into The Thrill Of It All, which also features more, of what this writer considers to be some of The Riff Lord’s best heavy metal alchemy with a push-and-pull riff, moored by an unholy low-end as Ozzy asks ‘won’t you help me Mr. Jesus, won’t you tell me if you can, when you see this world we live in, do you still believe in man’ which is a line as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Around the three-minute mark, they collectively kick it up a notch, launching into a fun, rollicking outro, closing the song with overwhelmingly positive vibes, which often gets lost when discussing Black Sabbath’s music. Yes, there was doom and darkness to their sound, but they collectively seemed to never lose faith in the idea that believing in yourself leads to positive results in one’s life.
It’s been well documented that this period in Sabbath’s career was marked by their insane drug use, as well as Iommi’s frustrations and insecurities about the rock press of the day not putting him and Sabbath alongside their more ‘civilized’ peers, particularly his old friend Brian May, Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore to name a few. The rock press, both British and American, painted Sabbath as knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal land pirates, not worthy of the accolades thrown to Zeppelin, Queen, and Deep Purple.
Thus, this period marked a lot of experimentation, first seen on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but really hitting a super nova on Technical Ecstasy, so here we get the mostly instrumental, epic-ness of Supertzar featuring an understated riff march, all sorts of effects and vocal histrionics, featuring ample amount crescendoing ‘aahh’s’ and ‘oohh’s’ that went on to become an intro in Black Sabbath’s live staple over the decades.
Next up, is the ‘hit’ from Sabotage, Am I Going Insane (Radio), amazingly the only song from the album featured on the aforementioned We Sold Our Soul For Rock ‘N’ Roll compilation, and one of the bands strangest, yet most accessible tracks, but in reality, for this reviewer, it’s a set-up for one of the most towering, crushing epic album closers in their mighty back catalog, The Writ.
As the track slowly fades out, there, amid the insane laughter, running parallel, a continuous, anguished howl, can be heard, that soon gives way to Butler’s watery bass riff and a faint echoing of Ozzy’s first line amongst the psychedelic bass ooze, can be heard, before the entire band explodes in unison, like an asteroid hitting the earth with the jaw-dropping vocals leading the way; ‘The way I feel is the way I am, I wish I’d walked before I started to run to you, just to you, What kind of people do you think we are? Another joker who’s a rock and roll star for you, just for you’.
As noted, it is my opinion that Ozzy NEVER sounded better, and this included his solo work. His vocal performance on The Writ showcases an epic, angry Ozzy, really letting loose, soaring while spitting out Butler’s lyrics with a passion and venom that can be felt through the speakers. The next verse features one of my favorite lines of any rock and metal song in ‘The endless ocean of emotion I swam for you, yeah for you’, which is easily felt as any human with a conscience has gone through something similar with another human.
The band, for the most part, take a back seat as the lurching riff, bass and drums are relatively low key in comparison to the vocal performance. The track essentially plays out in three parts with the monolithic opening, a cool mid-section boasting a slithering riff before descending into one of Iommi’s experimental, trip-outs, Ozzy still carrying the track as he ends on a high note, saying ‘everything is gonna work out fine, yeah, if it don’t, I feel I’ll blow my mind’ and with that, they bring the album to its otherworldly close.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Sabotage’s iconic, hilarious, yet amazing, what-in-the-fuck-is-this album cover, which features Ozzy in a dress/hippy-ass dashiki and Ward in a pair of red tights, his wife’s allegedly, as Iommi and Butler look like they just walked in off the street. The idea was a mirror duality, but evidently there was a miscommunication in the scheduling of the photo shoot, as well as the concept, so the band, thinking it was a preliminary, showed up as they were, but the reality was it was the actual cover shoot. However, in the end, it worked out well as the cover depicts the heavy metal madness and hysteria felt within these grooves.
Lots of people will make a billion arguments for the other five albums, but for me, Black Sabbath were at the zenith of the Ozzy-era with Sabotage, succeeding, despite the drugs and legal insanity, to drop their last truly classic album, before ejecting Ozzy and replacing him with Ronnie James Dio, for the also-legendary Heaven & Hell, but that’s a story for another day.
I’ll end by simply saying thank you to Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward for the music, for giving everyone who didn’t fit in or felt different, a release and a sense of community. For the endless source of inspiration and for showing us all how to stay positive in a fucked-up world, all while drawing from the endless well of creativity they seem to effortlessly tap into. Ozzy forever. Sabbath forever.
Label: Vertigo Records
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Martin Williams
