BLACK SABBATH — Born Again (review)

Album · 1983 · Heavy Metal

5/5 · 2016-01-06
Unitron

Black Sabbath - Born Again

"Born Again" is the eleventh studio album by heavy metal band Black Sabbath. By 1983, Dio and Vinny Appice had left the band due to disagreements and misunderstandings over the making of the live album "Live Evil", so the rest of Black Sabbath had to find a new vocalist and drummer. Original drummer Bill Ward rejoined for Born Again, and they recruited Deep Purple's Ian Gillan to be on vocals. Ian Gillan plus 3/4 of Black Sabbath sounds like a perfect match, and unlike most, I certainly find it to be a perfect combination.

"Born Again" is one of Black Sabbath's darkest and doom-filled albums to my ears, but with a perfect balance between driving songs like opener 'Trashed' and the dark dirges of other tracks. The beginning of 'Disturbing the Priest', which I assume is a play-on-words of disturbing the peace, definitely fits the cover with it's terrifying shrieks and Iommi's signature sludgy guitar. The short opening for 'Zero the Hero', the dark ambient sounding 'The Dark', sounds like it came straight out of a horror movie soundtrack. Finally, 'Digital Bitch' opens up with one of the nastiest sounding guitar riffs I've heard, and I mean that in the best way possible. It really gets you ready for the rest of the fast and catchy song.

While this is unmistakably Black Sabbath, with Ian Gillan on vocals it's hard not to hear some elements of Deep Purple within the album. The best example of this is in my favorite song from the album, 'Zero the Hero'. When Gillan sings the name of the song, it sounds right out of a Deep Purple song. The song maintains a constant dark driving riff and a haunting chromatic walk down the scale. While I'm talking about this song, I may as well mention Iommi's amazing guitar solo in the middle of the song. The guitar really sings, and just enhances the sound mixed with the haunting notes being played. For a little bit of trivia, the short 'Stonehenge' has an interesting live performance story that may sound familiar. The band wanted a Stonehenge replica for the Born Again tour, but the replica was accidentally too big. This is what most likely inspired the famous scene in "This is Spinal Tap", where they get a Stonehenge replica that is too small.

The main complaint that I've seen for this album is the production. The production is definitely not the best I've heard, but I personally find the muffled raw sound benefits the dark and raw sound of the album. The only issue I have with the production is sometimes the guitar solos can be a bit too high-pitched at a loud volume, so I have to turn it down a bit while they play. The album cover is also another part of the album that is often seen as a negative. I personally think it has some sort of charm to it. The evil devil-baby featured on the cover looks like a still of a puppet from a stop-motion short.

Overall, the album is definitely an acquired taste and perhaps a love-it-or-hate-it album. If you don't have an issue with muffled productions and are a fan of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, then I highly recommend giving it a try. Hope you found this review helpful.

Feel free to comment!

more than 2 years ago
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Tupan wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I like this album, not a materpiece, but some very good songs

Bosh66 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

No, we just assumed it was some Japanese phrase you'd picked up ;-)

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Patanoid? Paranoid. You knew what I meant.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

The cover of Patanoid was supposed to be for Warpigs which was the original title of the album. The story is that the photo was done one night when Geezer and everyone was quite drunk.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Thanks for all the comments, I agree that it's a much better cover than Paranoid. At least this cover makes sense even if you don't like it, while I've never understood what the cover for Paranoid is supposed to be. I've never heard the remaster, but I'll have to hear how it sounds.

Bosh66 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Good call on the Scarabus connection, Peter.
Khaliq, it's refreshing to read a positive view of this album. I also think the album is a great balance between dark forebodance and more upbeat riffy heavy metal. Always liked it. The atmospherics at times are in my view aided by the thick heavy mix (not "improved" much on the remaster) and Gillan's screams on Disturbing and the title track are other-worldly and indeed disturbing.
And yes, the cover is a shocker, but a clever play on the Born Again album title.

Kingcrimsonprog wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It may be a bad album cover, but its a better album cover than Paranoid, which really gets off lightly in the reviews when this seems mentioned a bit too often.

Does the recent remaster sound better?

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Vim, I read no one in the band liked it.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

That really is an awful cover. It surprises me how bad it is every time I see it.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I bought this album on cassette when it first came out and didn't even know who Ian Gillan was (I was 12). I thought it was an awesome album and Zero the Hero was my favourite. Years later I bought the CD and was familiar with many of the background stories. I still loved the music but yes, the production was/is really atrocious. By the way, if you ever listen to the song Scarabus by Ian Gillan Band you will hear where Disturbing the Priest's melody came from.