Technical Ecstasy
by Black Sabbath

From Captain_Dude 07/30/2011 05:55 | #25187 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

No, it's not all doom and gloom on this one. Black Sabbath evolved and this album shows how much they grew. I realize this isn't their most popular album...in fact, it gets slammed by a lot of Sabbath fans. However, listen to the album for its music! It's the Black Sabbath name across the top that causes people to expect something...not better...just different. "It's Alright" is one of Sabbath's all-time great songs.

From Boltzmann TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/22/2021 01:17 | #275251 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Genre purists have never stopped to amaze me. Even if you deviate from your usual style as elegantly as Black Sabbath on this album, you will receive hate. There's only one thing I can say to them: these artists you listen to are people, and they're very much into music in general, so there's a good chance that they also like stuff that's outside of their bubble, especially if shortly before their career the genre didn't exist at all. What did you think? They didn't listen to anything when they were teenagers? Anyway, I enjoy the static, emotionless, masculine head bangers from their first three albums as much as what they did on here. It's no less toxic though - I mean, I felt "nobody's gonna change me" for all the bad reasons, and that's exactly how I like my lower/middle class music. They seem to take a bit more Hendrix-esque approach on that track ("You Won't Change Me" to be clear), it builds and breaks similar to soul music or at least R&B, and has overall more melody and harmony to it than I expect from them - that someone could call this album soulless compared to the others is beyond me. Every album needs a perfect flaw where they just do something entirely different that doesn't really work and if it's as good as "It's Alright" then you really shouldn't be complaining. I especially like the Beach Boys-ish falsetto near the end. On "Gypsy" they're a bit more complex in structure than I'm used to, and a bit more theatrical, probably got the idea from Queen (I guess?). And again I would like to restate how elegantly they do all of this, not a moment they don't sound true to themselves. I think it's a great odd-1-out album, and every great band needs one. (Edited)

A very underrated album, in my opinion much better than 'Vol 4' as is ''Never Say Die'. Still a very heavy album when it needs to be, like for example, the riff and keyboard string intro of 'You Won't Change Me'. Packs quite a punch with some cracking guitar soloing throughout and the drums virtually jump out of the speakers! The sleeve design lets it down a bit but that is a minor point really as the music is great. (Edited)

From Brandon8 TOP 100 COMMENTER 04/30/2018 00:07 | #213908 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Definitely an underrated album I am glad I finally listened to it. All the songs are good especially Tracks 1-4. Its a good change of pace album. (Edited)

From Fischman TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/15/2016 16:39 | #180228 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I find this album to be far better than the typical narrative it receives. I even like the oft-maligned ballad, It's Alright. The heavy metal high point is 'All Moving Parts (Stand Still).'