here's a kinda neat one: TYR, black sabbath's 15th (!!!) studio album, is one of the most forgotten records of their discography, or at least it has been in my experience. on rateyourmusic it has the 3rd-least ratings of any sabbath LP and on AOTY it ranks dead last with just 81 ratings for a whopping user average of 51. it occupies a bizarre liminal space within the band's catalog--people don't hate it as much as never say die!, born again or forbidden, but while it has a non-negligibly ... read more

edit (4/3/23): bumping it up just a few points as i re-evaluate some of sabbath's discography (i'll get to the last few sabbath albums eventually btw); better than mob rules in retrospect.

(original score: 72) YES! THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!

while headless cross is no career-defining masterpiece, it's exactly what black sabbath needed after three straight stinkers and a decade of instability. it's a simple, badass trad metal release that brings them to their dark roots--while the doom metal ... read more

edit (2/23/23): not like i particularly enjoyed this album when i originally listened to it or anything, but looking back idk why i gave it a 51 cuz that feels a lil high. moving it down cuz i am certain i will never desire to listen to the eternal idol for the rest of my life, not even the "highlights" which were probably just labeled as such cuz they're a bit more tolerable.

(original score: 51) like seventh star, the eternal idol suffers from a production job that irritates me ... read more

ugh. so i'll be honest, i didn't expect to ever actually review this thing...i started reviewing all the black sabbath albums because i thought they'd be the perfect band to kick off this account, and they were! but i lowkey thought i'd stop reviewing their discography around 1981 because once you reach born again and seventh star...shit starts gettin' REAL rough. and hey, i actually dig a handful of the albums they released in their later years, but before we get to the solid ones we have to ... read more

don't expect a lot of pop punk reviews on this account because that's not what this is for. punk, of most varieties, is more than welcome but its most melodic and polished forms don't belong here, chief among them being POP PUNK which was heavily influenced by this band. i don't even hate pop punk but it doesn't fit in with the demographic of music i review here, which is supposed to be loud and dirty and gross and heavy in some regard (and sidenote: i'd really like to start getting dirtier and ... read more

this is the one that's often regarded as iron maiden's opus, the only album of theirs--if there even is one--that's capable of summing up everything that makes them metal legends. if i may be a contrarian, i must admit i disagree with that notion. i really like this record, but i think it's outclassed by a few other maiden releases (like either of the di'anno albums, piece of mind, powerslave, etc.) it suffers from a bit more filler than one would like, but it's also anchored by some of the ... read more

i may not be the biggest fan of NWOBHM, but i've found myself listening to a lot of it over the past week. the movement was incredibly important to the history of metal, and many of its most prominent bands influenced the trailblazing acts of extreme metal's underground in the early 80's. we know bands like metallica, slayer, bathory, and other pioneers were obsessed with NWOBHM or NWOBHM-adjacent groups such as motorhead, judas priest, iron maiden, venom, and of course the very band i'm ... read more

everyone knows born again isn't sabbath's finest hour, so i won't sugarcoat it: this thing kinda sucks. it's not worthless garbage from front to back, but it's one of the most boring and uninspired albums this band ever recorded. it's honestly a little sad to hear black sabbath in this state, churning out 41 minutes of insipidly bland filler that almost borders the irritating waters of hair metal. the tracklist does produce a couple standouts, namely disturbing the priest and zero the hero, but ... read more

edit (4/3/23): alright...i've always loved mob rules. and i still like it quite a bit! but man, for some reason it has just fallen off for me lately. a bit too much filler for my tastes really does it in. i don't often find myself wanting to listen to the whole thing, whereas i might just let heaven and hell or headless cross play in their entireties if i have 40 minutes to kill.

(original score: 77) here's the rare example of a traditional heavy metal album that i genuinely love which ... read more

edit (4/3/23): after sitting with me a bit more, heaven and hell has been growing on me and has now surpassed mob rules in my ranking of the sabbath catalog. didn't expect to say that a few years ago, but as heaven and hell gets better with time, mob rules seems to just stagnate and become less memorable. still dig that album tho. also die young is my fav song now instead of neon knights but that ones still up there

(original score: 74) with ozzy osbourne's departure after the release of black ... read more

on killers we see iron maiden hint at the brand of metal they'd pursue in the future, complete with galloping rhythms and prominent leads. those things were present on the debut as well, but you can really see how killers functions as a stepping stone between that slightly rawer sound and the significantly more polished identity of beast-era maiden. that in conjunction with the band's formative punk influences creates yet another killer collection of jams from the short-lived di'anno era. it's ... read more

holy FUCK, i didn't remember early maiden kicking this much ass !!!

so since i've been bumping quite a bit of british metal from the 70's/80's, i found myself relistening to some iron maiden. i remembered loving much of their work as my favorite NWOBHM material out there, spare maybe a motorhead album or two--but then again, that was years ago and my tastes in music have definitely shifted since then. would their sound come off as dated and corny like the other british trad metal bands i ... read more

1978's never say die! is one of black sabbath's most reviled albums for many reasons. it was the last ozzy-fronted sabbath album until 2013 and their final release to feature the OG lineup of ozzy, tony, bill and geezer. it followed up the disappointing technical ecstasy and preceded what's largely considered to be black sabbath's creative rebirth; through a modern lens, this album is now seen as the last gasp of a washed up band who was in desperate need of the salvation they'd receive from ... read more

so after dropping 6 consecutive genre-defining classics, black sabbath finally lay a goose egg with technical ecstasy. it marks a pivot to streamlined hard rock, with the band opting to simplify their sound and get back to basics after embracing proggy excess on their last two records. it's a move i completely understand, but i'm not so sure i appreciate it; sure, sabbath have undoubtedly proven that they can write downright destructive heavy metal tunes without the added flourishes of any ... read more

zzzzz ... boring. prime evil is such a nothing album. demolition man, the new vocalist in place of cronos, sounds like any other metal frontman you could pull off the streets of england in the 80's. the tracklist features no particular highlights to remember, and while i am thankful for its mercifully short runtime at 36 minutes, it kinda feels longer than it is. the production sounds lame, the whole record feels uninspired, and for all its flaws, i think i even prefer calm before the storm to ... read more

calm before the storm is unfortunately a forgettable offering that signified the downfall of the once-mighty venom. it's not offensively bad in any regard, and if you're into cheesy british metal from the 80's then check this out, cuz it may be your thing. this album doesn't have much in common with the extreme metal bands venom influenced; it's just a somewhat fast-paced, melodic, polished NWOBHM-style record. some tunes like fire stand out as a bit more energetic than the rest, but calm ... read more

edit (4/5/23): overrated it just a tad--i don't come back to the entire album as often as i do just a track or two (namely POOOWARDRIIIIVE) but it's still some wicked vintage thrash.

(original score: 91) at war with satan wasn't raw enough for ya? okay. here's the most lo-fi, raw-sounding venom album the band ever made. possessed has this wicked sound that genuinely resembled the bands of the extreme metal underground, and the songs were brutal to reflect that: heavy, fast and sloppy, just ... read more

edit (2/23/23): bumped down from an 84 to an 82 just cuz i haven't really felt the urge to come back to it at all, it certainly stands as a downgrade from their first two records and is easily surpassed by the one that followed it

at war with satan was actually better than i expected. i don't know why i was anticipating such a dramatic drop-off in quality from black metal; maybe seeing the 20 minute long runtime of the first track threw me off. whatever the case, this is another great album by ... read more

alright, yeah, ok...after about a month of defending my initial stance of welcome to hell being venom's best album, i will ultimately concede that black metal is a bit better. it's not quite as lo-fi or raw, which is a damn shame but not the end of the world because the songwriting here is a step above. the songs here are just better than the songs on welcome to hell, as much as i do love them and their unpolished energy. venom, being the rare kind of true inventors they were, banged out 10 ... read more

sooooooo i already reviewed this album ...

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/notbuzzzila/album/50382-welcome-to-hell/

but in short, thank fucking GOD for venom, man. holy SHIT, i cannot BELIEVE metal survived that long without them. with the exception of black sabbath and iron maiden, the metal bands that had been populating the scenes across north america and europe sucked so much ass. that painfully boring traditional heavy metal sound couldn't sustain the movement for much longer, so ... read more