BLACK SABBATH — Forbidden (review)

Album · 1995 · Heavy Metal

1.5/5 · 2010-05-30
SouthSideoftheSky

“How many tears must we cry before learning, things that we have they’re for real and we’re losing”

Forbidden is to date the last Black Sabbath studio album and followed one year after Cross Purposes which had seen the return of singer Tony Martin. For Forbidden, drummer extraordinaire Cozy Powell also comes back as well as bassist Neal Murray which means that this is the exact same line-up that did TYR five years previously. In terms of quality and style however, these two albums are as far away from each other as you can imagine. While TYR belongs to my all time favourites, Forbidden is one of the least good Black Sabbath albums ever! Still, I don’t think it is quite as bad as many people say. There are some nice moments here as well but hardly enough to stop this from being a rather sad ending of Black Sabbath's recording career (but let’s hope there will be further albums in the future).

While I have the greatest respect and admiration for all of these people here including keyboard player Geoff Nichols and, of course, Mr. Black Sabbath himself Tony Iommi, I must say that this is a very weak final statement by one of my favourite line-ups of one of my favourite bands. It is particularly sad to note that this album was to be one of the amazing Cozy Powell's last recordings ever before he passed away in 1998.

The album opens with Illusion Of Power which features a guest spot by Ice T that depending on your definition might perhaps be characterized as something of a “Rap”, but it is really best described as a spoken word passage. Regardless of what you call it, it is a bit out of place here. Forbidden is not the first Black Sabbath album to feature a guest artist. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath featured Rick Wakeman of Yes on keyboards on one track and Headless Cross featured a guitar solo by Brian May of Queen on one track. The nature and pedigree of each of these guests pretty much represents the credentials of the respective album they participated in! From the greats Rick Wakeman and Brian May to Ice T indicates how far the band had sunk at this time and how desperate they were to fit into the contemporary musical climate of the mid 90’s. They brought in Ice T’s band mate Ernie C to produce the album.

Shaking Off The Chains, Get A Grip and Illusion Of Power all have respectable riffs. Can't Get Close Enough is slower and has more memorable verses; this is one of the album's highlights for me together with the closer Kiss Of Death which features a strong vocal by Martin and characteristic heavy drums of Powell. I Won't Cry For You has a surprisingly anthemic chorus for Black Sabbath and this is another pretty good song but hardly something out of the ordinary. It is with songs like Guilty As Hell and Sick And Tired the album sinks below average with generic riffs and middle-of-the-road sound. These songs are quite dull and wholly standard Hard Rock songs without any redeeming features. Rusty Angels picks things up slightly with a half decent chorus, but the lyrics are rather cheesy and there is nothing really memorable about the song. The title track is decent, but again totally unremarkable.

Like with the horrible Born Again album from the early 80's the weaknesses of Forbidden lies both in the uninspired song writing and some misguided musical ideas. However, there are a few decent moments here and I actually rate this higher than both Born Again and Dehumanizer. Still, this album is for fans and collectors only, but some of these might enjoy some moments of this album to some degree at least.