Album of the day (#3453): Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1971.
Country:
Overall rank: 333
Average rating: 84/100 (from 806 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Sweet Leaf
2. After Forever
3. Embryo
4. Children Of The Grave
5. Orchid
6. Lord Of This World
7. Solitude
8. Into The Void

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[Villain]

Into the Void could possibly be my favorite guitar riff of all time.
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Check out some of my other interest on my own review site. Scum N' Villainy

http://www.scumnvillainy.com/

[Sonoffatboy]

Paranoid gets mire love, but this is my no1 Sabbath album from Ozzy years. Its got three of the best tracks the band ever did, and has some of the best riffs in Iommis entire career, even the instrumentals aren't that bad and provide a good breather. This is the band at their pinnacle.

[CA Dreamin]

1. Sweet Leaf - 9/10. The song's about drugs in case the title didn't infer that enough already. The simplicity and straightforwardness of its lyrics match the simplicity of its main riff and drum beat, which are now iconic to many Black Sabbath fans, who like myself, consider Sweet Leaf as one of their best tracks. I particularly like the lyric near the end: "soon the world will love you sweet leaf." Hasn't quite turned out be true as cannabis is still frowned upon in many places, but the dominoes are slowly falling (here in the states anyway). Unless the sweet leaf in the song is actually coca, used to make cocaine. I don't think that's what the song was going for, but I suppose that's another interpretation.

2. After Forever - 10/10. Hell yes, best song on the album. Rock music in general, and especially Black Sabbath, were often labeled as the devil's music back in their early days. After Forever was a response to that, defending themselves against such criticism with pro-Christian lyrics in this one. Anyway, love the riffs, love the tempo. An all-around great song I can listen to over and over.

3. Embryo. Not really a song so no rating. Just a brief acoustic interlude. It's hardly anything by itself, but it plays well sandwiched between After Forever and Children of the Grave.

4. Children of the Grave - 8/10. I like this song but always felt it's a tad overrated. I really dig the lyrics, an anti-war song, both in the immediate sense of Vietnam and the ever-looming sense of nuclear war. But these kind of lyrics were quite common in rock songs back in those days, and while this is very good, I don't consider it one of the era's finest. The instrumentals were also a little repetitive.

5. Orchid. Another acoustic interlude like Embryo.

6. Lord of this World - 9/10. Lyrically, thematically reminiscent of After Forever. A song that refuted the band's Satanist label, despite such an implicit title. Sure it's technically about Satan, but it's more of a reflection on how humanity acts like Satan. The song doesn't glorify it at all. Musically, the tempo, riffs, and song structure foreshadow Vol 4 and beyond. Does anyone else hear the similarity between this track and some tracks from Vol 4, or is it just me?

7. Solitude - 5/10. This track is the Planet Caravan of this album. The slow, minimalist, almost atmospheric Black Sabbath doesn't entirely work for me. It doesn't help that Ozzy didn't sing this with his usual 'oomph.' It doesn't really sound like him. In fact, I'm not 100% sure it was him. Either way, this was a forgettable track. For the record though, I really like Changes from Vol 4, the quieter atmospheric song where Ozzy applied all his vocal effort and it carried the tune extremely well, unlike Solitude here on Master of Reality.

8. Into the Void - 8/10. Just another good Black Sabbath song about mankind's self-destruction. A fitting way to close an album.

Overall a great album. I actually think it could have benefited from one or two more songs, since two tracks are technically only brief interludes. But for 34 minutes of music, it still packs a punch. As for its rank on Sabbath's discography, I'd say it lands somewhere between 3rd and 5th.
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on such a winter's day

[Amirkhosro]

The combination of proto doom metal and positive religious messaging results in a really heady psychedelic experience like no other album before or after.