NEVER SAY DIE
I always start with the album cover design and this one is strange to me. I don't really get it. Two pilots in pilot garb I don't recognize. It looks to be an American jet behind them. But I had never seen American pilots wearing a get-up like the ones they are wearing on the cover of this album. What is it supposed to mean? There are no songs in this album that are about pilots. And what the album's title, Never Say Die, has to do with pilots is beyond me. As for the album title, it is the name of the lead song on the album. So the Sabs finish with four out of eight albums named after a song in the album. But I don't like the cover design. It makes no sense. Maybe the worst cover of all their albums.
Never Say Die
As for the lead song, it's pretty good. A simple riff, and a good beat. That's a good combo. But is it as good as the other lead off songs on the other albums? No. When compared to the first songs of their previous seven albums, it does not rate as high. Think about the song Black Sabbath, on their first album, then War Pigs on their second album, then Sweet Leaf, then Wheels of Confusion, then Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Hole in the Sky, and even Back Street Kids. Well, it's as good as Back Street Kids anyway. So I'll give it the same rating: a nine out of ten.
Johnny Blade
The second song on this album lives up to the great second songs on all their albums. Only the second song on Technical Ecstasy failed to live up to that. But the second song here does. It starts with that synthesizer again, but the song does not depend on it. Iommi kicks in with a great riff and it's a great song. It's a story type of song about a kid named Johnny Blade. Maybe someone in the band was thinking about writing a novel about a "back street kid", (inspired by the lead song on Technical Ecstasy perhaps.) Whatever. It's a great song and a ten out of ten.
Junior's Eyes
An offbeat song, but a good one. It starts with Geezer's bass riff, and then Tony begins playing. It is a moody song. Still a heavy metal song. I read somewhere that Ozzy's father had just died, and this song was inspired by that. I don't really know. I never heard Ozzy talk about it. I've only heard that the band was going through a lot of turmoil during this period. It's a good song. A nine out of ten.
A Hard Road
Another great song. It's the last song on Side 1, so think of NIB, Iron Man, Children of the Grave and Supernaut. It has a great riff, some great singing, and great lyrics. Altogether a great song like those other great songs. So it's a ten out of ten.
Shock Wave
The lead song on Side 2, Shock Wave is a great song. It's my personal favorite song on this album, and it's a great heavy metal song. Iommi shines here. The lyrics are a fallback to the doom and gloom lyrics of their earlier work. I had no problem with the lyrics being positive but Sabbath made their name with doom and gloom lyrics and the evil forces and evil power mentioned here gets them back to their roots. My only critique is the oo-ooo, oo-ooo Beach Boys type background vocals near the end. But it's only as the song is ending so I won't let that lower my rating which is a ten out of ten.
Air Dance
Another offbeat song, like Junior's Eyes. It seems that the Fab Four, although going through some personal problems, were at the same time putting out some experimental music as this song displays. And in this song, as in Junior's Eyes, they are successful. It's a sad song about a woman who was the "queen of dance" but then, as time went by, saw her star fall, which if you think about it, is inevitable for us all. It kind of crosses into a jazz type song near the end, but it's still Iommi and he has already shown to be a versatile guitarist. To me the song is a nine out of ten, like Junior's Eyes.
Over to You
Another great song. It has great guitar riffs, great singing, and great lyrics. A positive type of message, but so what. It's a great song. It has some melodic changes with what seems like a harp in there, but that doesn't take away from the greatness of this song. It's a ten out of ten. Hands down.
Break Out
This song is an instrumental. And it's well documented how the band was having problems during the recording of this album. I heard that Ozzy had enough at this point, and refused to sing any more in the recording studio. So the last two songs had to be recorded without Ozzy. And on this song they used saxophones. Does it work? Not for me. I think they might have been better off nixing this one from the album's lineup. But they didn't, so to me it's a five out of ten.
Swinging the Chain
Sabbath's albums typically had eight songs each. (Vol 4 the lone exception with nine.) So it would have been fitting for them to nix the prior song and keep the song lineup at eight. As it is, this song, Swinging the Chain is the ninth song on the album, joining Vol 4 with a nine song lineup. But with Ozzy no longer participating at this point, Bill Ward took over the singing for this song. Do I like this song? Not so much. I would have liked it better had Ozzy been the one singing it. It's got some good things going for it, and the beat change at 2:53 was one of those good things. But as a final song for a Sabbath album it doesn't hold up. Not when you consider Into the Void, Fairies Wear Boots, Spiral Architect, and Dirty Women. On the Sabotage album, The Writ came close. This one doesn't come close. So it's a five out of ten.
In conclusion, this album was on track to being one of Sabbath's finest albums. I mean, check it out. The first seven songs were rated nines and tens. They just needed one more song to wrap it up. But then Ozzy flaked and they were left in the lurch. Saxophones were not the answer, and with all due respect to Bill Ward, Ozzy needed to sing that last song. But, to me, it's still a great album, and as a final album for the Fab Four, it has a special place in their discography. Don't believe the nay-sayers and the haters who diss this album. It has great songs, and it's a great album.
No comments:
Post a Comment