Black Sabbath - Tyr - 1990
Nothing you have heard from Black Sabbath is really gonna prepare you for Tyr. What seems to be a concept album about Norse mythology is much more than that. The band denies any conceptualizing or thread but it seems so obvious. So what is it? Some of the heaviest and most complex production in the history of the band pervades this record. It's epic.
Shunting the production values of the previous decade with abandon on the previous two records, Iommi, Nichols, Martin and Cozy Powell raise the stakes with overlays, overdubs, thick walls of gothic ambience, Tyr is meant to be played loud. Excuse me, LOUD.
One moment the record is almost elegiac, the next it's a pummeling driver that would make Motorhead proud. Especially on a song like "The Law Maker".
The record gets a little flabby toward the middle but, somehow, never falls prey to the indulgences of, say, Kiss's The Elder or the obnoxious self importance of Judas Priest's Nostradamus.
Not my favorite Sabbath album, but by no means an embarrassment. Of course, if you are expecting Headless Cross or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath or Paranoid or even The Eternal Idol or Sabotage, it's not that. No way.
Grade: B+
ASide: Anno Mundi, Valhalla
BlindSide: The law Maker
DownSide:
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