Their best from the post-Mob Rules era.

Hideously underrated album, and one of my faves of all time. A classic in my eyes.

Probably Dio's 2nd best album (Rising would have to be his #1). Maybe #2, after Trying To Burn The Sun.

I believe this to be RJD's best vocal effort and one of the greatest Black Sabbath albums, just so many heavy riffs. This has always been one of my favourite ever albums and has always been overlooked by many when it comes to looking at the Sabbath collection.

Another heavily underrated album in the vast Black Sabbath discography. Too bad as it's filled to the brim with heavy and memorable riffs, distinctive bass lines and solid drumming. And Dio's performance on this record is top-notch (maybe even better than that ). Not a single Sabbath album recorded with him is any less than brilliant.

The best of sabbath after their gold age

Good album, with some outstanding vocals, but it's just a bit too long for me.

Good album, , good HM, but weekest whit Dio on vix (at BS of corse) I prefere HnH best, Mob Rules was ok, this is weekest

An extremely weak Black Sabbath album below average, no matter who would have released this.

I pretty much agree with all the positive comments given by others here and disagree with Marcel. This album is one I've only just recently discovered and it's very good. There are a stack of monster heavy riffs by Iommi and the vocals by Dio are brilliant. I can't compare it to all of Black Sabbath's catalogue because I've never bothered with the albums between this and Born Again - I am turned off by the constant changing of musicians and the ratings for these albums by others suggest they aren't very good. I certainly rate this better than Born Again and a bit better than Mob Rules. It is certainly a lot stronger than Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. I think the first four or five Sabbath albums are in a class of their own because they were ground-breaking for their time and probably kicked off heavy metal as we know it. But I'd be interested to hear more from Marcel on how he rates this as weak in the Sabbath catalogue.

This is their heaviest with Dio, and probably the heaviest album (not the best) Dio has ever been involved in. I didn't take to this much at first, but have learned to really like it over the years. Lots of obscure but great Sabbath stuff to be found here. And if your a Dio fan, this is a lot different than the kind of stuff he's usually involved with, he tried to repeat this style on some of his solo albums (Strange Highways) but never reached the quality of this.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 27.07.2013 at 14:28

An extremely weak Black Sabbath album below average, no matter who would have released this.

wanst that you and Richard once agreed this is best Dio BS album ?

Written by Bad English on 26.07.2015 at 19:45

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 27.07.2013 at 14:28

An extremely weak Black Sabbath album below average, no matter who would have released this.

wanst that you and Richard once agreed this is best Dio BS album ?

No... must have been someone else since this one is an extremely weak BS album (even with Dio on vocals)

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 26.07.2015 at 19:49

Written by Bad English on 26.07.2015 at 19:45

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 27.07.2013 at 14:28

An extremely weak Black Sabbath album below average, no matter who would have released this.

wanst that you and Richard once agreed this is best Dio BS album ?

No... must have been someone else since this one is an extremely weak BS album (even with Dio on vocals)

then Richard was it? I remember you , me and him was involve din discussion somewhere back in Msv2 days ,

SuperPuperDuperUltraMegaHyper Underrated album of all time

Good riffs with smart themes but it's not that awesome. I definitely prefer "Headless Cross", "Tyr" and "Heaven and Hell".

You're Living in a Time Machine!

Don't remember a lot from this one... will have to revisit.

The Archagathus album with the same name is fucking incredible, for all you drug-crazed grindfreaks.

Edit: I have a tape version of the Sabbath album somewhere. Going to track that down rather than being lame and streaming it, just because I can.

I just don't get why this album is so underrated and overlooked. Aside from the terrible cover art it's really good Sabbath album, I love how they tried something completely new and different lyrically but still managed to keep the old spirit. Maybe they just have so many killer records to begin with that even gems like this and the ones with Tony Martin just pale in comparison completely for many casual listeners.

Written by Metal Rabotnik on 14.07.2020 at 04:44

Maybe they just have so many killer records to begin with that even gems like this and the ones with Tony Martin just pale in comparison completely for many casual listeners.

Nailed it. I have exactly the same opinion.

I think Dehumanizer may also be underrated and/or overlooked because with the return of Dio people expected Heaven And Hell or Mob Rules pt.II and this album is not. It is still one of the strongest BS albums and the first that I bought from the band.

Really cool album that i've been spinning quite a lot recently. Some of the songs are a bit dragging and feels uninspiring (TV Crimes, Time Machine for example) which keeps it from getting a 9 but yeah.. a strong 8 as some of the songs here are among my favourite Sabbath tunes (Computer God, After All, I, Master of Insanity). If you look on it overall it's pretty much as good as Heaven & Hell and Mob Rules (although those albums have some songs that are among the best songs ever in heavy metal).

^ not even close to the previous two albums with Ronnie, but still a good album.

I just love this album.

The return of Dio is probably what most Black Sabbath fans were hoping they would see happen again, don't get me wrong Tony Martin was great, but let's face it, Ronnie James Dio was a metal god. 30 seconds in and it struck me, this is exactly what I missed most about Sabbath, it was that raw, and passionate energy that Dio provided, which was second to none. The return of Butler was also a great addition aswel, as he was a solid rock behind the original Black Sabbath sound and structure.

This album may not have been their best work, but it was still a top quality album imo, with many highlights. "Computer God", "T.V. Crimes", "Master Of Insanity" and "I" are the best songs on here for me. The sound of this album seems to take alot of inspiration from Dio's previous work with Black Sabbath, only this time they opted for an even heavier sound, which had possibly resulted in this being Black Sabbath's heaviest album. Overall the album is great, but maybe there are just one too many average songs on here to justify this from being a classic Black Sabbath album.

This was also their best album cover too imo.