I'm going to be honest here, this album IS just as bad as the majority make it out to be. For one thing, Martin's vocals, which I've never really admired, rarely manage to bring any song out of complete and utter boredom, proving themselves to sound rather weak. The most interesting and best thing about this album is definitely Iommi's guitar work, but that's not saying much, since in my opinion, Sabbath have always been musically charged by his input into the sound. 'The Illusion of Power' makes for a really pitiful opener, and most of the other songs suffer in the same way from uninspired songwriting and half-baked musicianship (apart from Iommi), but there are two songs that grabbed my attention and even made me call them 'decent': 'Get a grip', which for the most part is very simplistic but is pretty solid, and closer 'kiss of death', which somehow reminds me of 'Lonely is the word' because of its melancholic touches and nice balladry. In all honesty these two songs and guitar work is why I've given this album a 4 and not a worse rating. Let's hope the new BS album with ozzy will at least improve upon the quality of this one then.

Written by musicalkaratekid on 17.02.2013 at 01:15

I'm going to be honest here, this album IS just as bad as the majority make it out to be. For one thing, Martin's vocals, which I've never really admired, rarely manage to bring any song out of complete and utter boredom, proving themselves to sound rather weak. The most interesting and best thing about this album is definitely Iommi's guitar work, but that's not saying much, since in my opinion, Sabbath have always been musically charged by his input into the sound. 'The Illusion of Power' makes for a really pitiful opener, and most of the other songs suffer in the same way from uninspired songwriting and half-baked musicianship (apart from Iommi), but there are two songs that grabbed my attention and even made me call them 'decent': 'Get a grip', which for the most part is very simplistic but is pretty solid, and closer 'kiss of death', which somehow reminds me of 'Lonely is the word' because of its melancholic touches and nice balladry. In all honesty these two songs and guitar work is why I've given this album a 4 and not a worse rating. Let's hope the new BS album with ozzy will at least improve upon the quality of this one then.

Firts 2 Martin albums was OK , but then they becaim so boring, same this, one time listening and I am bored
seems band try go back to ''epic'' way but cant and seems to me Martin vocals is best when there is keyboards, then guitars LOL

Awful album,but Rusty angels and I won't cry for you are awesome pieces.

This is the only Black Sabbath album that I find unlistenable. It's even worse than Tony Martin's hairstyle.

Written by nikarg on 12.07.2020 at 18:28

This is the only Black Sabbath album that I find unlistenable. It's even worse than Tony Martin's hairstyle.

I wont cry for you is a nice and cheesy ballad.
As for the rest, I agree.

Definitely not their best effort, it sounds very generic, boring, and uninspiring, this undoubtedly was the worst Black Sabbath album under Tony Martin, and possibly the worst the band ever did, it's a bad album by Black Sabbath standards, but had it been under another name, it probably would of had a better reception.

Still there are several decent moments throughout the album, which you would expect from Black Sabbath. Iommi's riffs as usual are good quality, but nothing that memorable, and the songwriting is nothing special, the production for this one is also not that great, and Martin's vocal performance wasn't at his best, but was still decent enough overall.

"Guilty As Hell", and "Rusty Angels" are decent tracks, the rest was average material for me.

Forbidden might not be the absolute worst album ever, but I can't find anything especially good about it. There are promising riffs here and there, but the better parts don't really go anywhere, most the time they only fade away just when it's getting good or some WTF rapping part pops out of nowhere and takes me out of the mood completely. Tony Iommi has stated that if the band and label were to re-release this thing he would remix it completely, but I don't think that could save much because the songs themselves feel so incomplete, like they chose bad takes or accidentally released a demo instead of a full album. This could've been easily another winner, the basic ingredients are clearly there. Somewhere along the way somebody messed things completely and what came out is a sad little album.