BLACK SABBATH — Never Say Die! (review)

BLACK SABBATH — Never Say Die! album cover Album · 1978 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Time Signature
A hard road...

Genre: hard rock / metal

I agree with some of the other reviews of this album that "Never Say Die" is an underrated album, but I must admit that I think it is the weakest album of the Ozzy era, and I think that the band soundd very tired on this album.

That doesn't mean the it's a bad album at all. There are a number of nice tracks on it such as the Beatles-light slightly boogying "A Hard Road", the progressively inclined ballady "Air Dance" and the jazzy/funky "Break Out" with its effective use of saxophones, sounding like a darker "Twentieth Century Schizoid Man" - and "Break Out" is probably my favorite track on this record. "Johnny Blade" with its spacy keyboards also works well.

But, I think that many of the straight hard rocking tracks sound bland and uninspired compared to Sabbath's early works. And tracks like "Never Say Die", "Junior's Eyes", "Shock Wave" and "Over to You" don't really do that much for me. I do like the main riff of the latter though, and the former is kind of ahead of its time, sounding more like typical 80s metal than 70s hard rock.

The weakest Ozzy era album, for my money, but still an underrated album, and I think that fans of hard rock and early metal will find something on this album that they like, as I did.
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