Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - The Eternal Idol

Black Sabbath - The Eternal Idol - 1987

I do not like this new vocalist. Tony Martin sounds like a cross between Rob Halford and David Coverdale, incorporating the worst of both singers. Maybe he'll grow on me. I dunno.
The opening track, The Shining is certainly the most epic the band has sounded in ages. But, let's be real, it's just Tony Iommi and Geoff Nichols at this point. Sabbath is a brand and the brand must soldier on. The album is darker than anything Iommi has been able to put out in ages. I can't recall when the songs sounded this...full of foreboding. "Ancient Warrior" is easily the most ominous Sabbath has sounded since...Heaven and Hell? But for some reason it calls to mind the sound of the band around Sabotage for me. Weird, since Martin has a more Dio-esque voice.
Whatever mojo Iommi lost has certainly returned. He's finding riffs and licks that I didn't think were in him anymore. "Hard Life to Love" is one of the most enigmatic and sexy riffs I've heard from him. The rest of the band does a superb job of backing him up, even the vocals, but let's face it, the lead guitar's the star. It's relentless, this spin. Murderous riffs. Solid production. A real return to form.
Good to have you back, Sab.

Grade: A
ASide: The Shining, Eternal Idol
BlindSide: Ancient Warrior, Hard Life to Love, Born to Lose

If I am counting correctly, this is review number 413 in the entire Listening Post/Reflecting Pool/DoubleShot series.

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Dio - Dream Evil

Dio - Dream Evil - 1987

At this point I have to say: Whatever metal has transformed into, it's not pretty, it's not fun, it's kind of boring. It's the same thing over and over and over again. No wonder it was killed so easily by, well, musicians who wrote songs. There's a reason why we still listen to Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Tool, Pearl Jam, 20 years on and no one talks about Dio except as an icon. Certainly not for his lasting gift of music.
I want very much to review this album on it's merits, I really do. Were there anything on the record that I hadn't heard before from the same dwarf-lord, I would leap to sing about it.
Bt, there isn't. That said, for what the style is there's a couple good tracks. "Sunset Superman" is one. And...um...

The fact that there's honest to goodness balladeering (All the Fools Sailed Away) on this record. But it's not even close to what it's supposed to sound like: Meat Loaf. This is his realm and he reveled in it and bathed in it. Dio is no match for the Bat Our of Hell singer, much as he'd obviously love to be. And on something as so obviously pandering as "I Could Have Been a Dreamer", he's not even Bat Out of Hell Loaf, more like Bad Attitude Loaf.

On Dream Evil there's no innovation, no integrity, this is a money grab. It all is.

Grade: C-
ASide: When a Woman Cries
BlindSide: Sunset Superman
DownSide: All the Fools Sailed Away, Naked in the Rain, I Could Have Been a Dreamer

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Whitesnake - Whitesnake

Whitesnake - Whitesnake - 1987

This is it for this part of the Listening Post. By this I mean that this corollary, this offshoot branch of the Purple Sabbath saga is ending here. There are many more Whitesnake records but my intention was never to follow them to their conclusion, just to divert for a while to see where they took us. I don't consider Coverdale an architect of modern metal any more than I consider Brian Setzer an architect of Rockabilly. His association with Deep Purple put him on the path of exploration and we will end that with this.
This album was a monster. Despite the fact that the opener, "Crying in the Rain" might as well be a rewrite of Toto's "Hold the Line". The slick as a nymphomaniac's nethers production is here in full force, as is the energy. "Bad Boys" is ready made to satisfy a legion of stadium fist pumpers.
(More Purple crossover! Guitarist Vivian Campbell was previously in Dio! He would later be introduced as Def Leppard's new guitarist as though he had been plucked from obscurity despite the fact that he was on this album and a member of Thin Lizzy. You'll recall that Def Leppard was the opening band for that Ozzy Osbourne concert I attended in 1980. Go ahead. Read it here)
This record was propelled by the redux of "Here I Go Again" and the ubiquitous ballad, "Is This Love". They sound as crisp and joyous as they do nostalgic and weathered. And I think they sounded that way 23 years ago!

I think Whitesnake was the last hair band to gasp, perhaps Def Leppard has a little more to say, but soon, just 4 years away, all the acid wash would be washed away by a little band from Seattle.
Still, there should be room in your heart for some good old fashioned glam metal.

Of the three classic Whitesnake albums (can you believe I actually wrote that sentence???) I still prefer Saints and Sinners but I understand why this was a smash.

Grade: A
ASide: Here I Go Again (although the original version is better), Is This Love
BlindSide: Still of the Night, Give Me All Your Love, Children of the Night
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Deep Purple - The House of Blue Light

Deep Purple - The House of Blue Light - 1987

Workmanlike, at best, this second record by the Mark II version of Deep Purple is actually my favorite of their post "Smoke on the Water" records. It's no Fireball and it's definitely no Machine Head but the band is in fine form and their songwriting has improved from the extrapolated jams of the last one. Every song is just a little too long and desperate in it's need to make room for everybody. Gillan needs his vox, Lord needs a place to shine his fancy fingerplaying and Blackmore needs to prove that he's relevant.
All that said, Blue Light is better than Stormbringer or Come Taste the Band, by a long shot. The glory days have past but these guys can still give their fans what their fans want. Although, by 1987 I'm seriously wondering who their fans are...

Grade: B-
ASide: Call of the Wild
BlindSide: The Spanish Archer
DownSide: The Unwritten Law, Mitzi Dupree

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin

Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin - 1986

I swear to god, "Secret Loser" sounds like Ratt's "Round and Round". And that's the problem with mid-80s metal. By now all these bands are starting to sound like each other. I don't know whose fault it is, I put the blame on everybody. Metal was big money in the mid 80s. Forced to share the stage with Michael Jackson just pushed everybody to come up with the next hit for a voracious sea of fans who, the labels and bands must have been assuming, would buy anything.
So Ratt sounds like Ozzy which sounds like Sabbath which sounds like.....You got your big ass shredatstic lead solos, the finger tapping craziness, over compressed drum pummeling, soaring vocals. It's all formula by now. And it's nowhere near as prevalent as it is on this record.
Interesting sidenote: Ozzy has never reissued this record. It has been all but deleted from his back catalog. If you hear it you will know why.
There's a little political commentary on this record. "Killer of Giants" is a way too on the nose plea for the end of nuclear standoffs and "Thank God for the Bomb"...is the opposite?
Osbourne and Daisley aren't really the best voices for this type of criticism, they're better suited to, I dunno, shrieking about monsters and murder and rock and roll.
The single (at the end of the record!!) "Shot in the Dark" is as generic a piece of radio friendly pap that renders Ozzy nearly anonymous on his own record. That said, it's the best song on the album.

Grade: D+
ASide: Shot in the Dark
BlindSide: Never
Downside: Secret Loser, Lightning Strikes

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Black Sabbath - Seventh Star (featuring Tony Iommi)

Black Sabbath - Seventh Star - 1986

Okay, so this isn't really a Black Sabbath album. It IS, but it isn't. It was meant to be Tony Iommi's solo record. Look at that cover. Black Sabbath FEATURING Tony Iommi?
What? Iommi INVENTED Black Sabbath. He was one of the four originals and has been in the band for almost 20 years at this point. Hmmm...jealous, Tony? Ozzy's a superstar and you're "part of a band"?
From the outset Seventh Star's "In for the Kill" has that singular 80s metal sound. Chukka-chukka guitars, anthemic soaring vocals, frenzied lead guitars. And generic as all get out.
The demonic pallbearer sound does appear immediately following on "No Stranger to Love" but, really? This is the subject matter you want to explore, Tony? I think you're trying to sell records and it's all coming across as pandering. And the straight up blues of "Heart Like A Wheel" doesn't even remind one of Sabbath so only adds to the confusion. Plus that's been done soooo soooo much better by others that it just left me wanting.
Songs like "Turn to Stone" start out promising and, just when you think, yeah, I can get in to this, Eric Singer is killing on the drums, Iommi is in rare form...Glenn Hughes's Coverdale-wannabe vocals come in, all over produced and doubled and tinny and, it all turns everything to shit. Oh, and Glenn used to be in Deep Purple, too. Natch!
All of this said, it's really hard to judge this record in context. Like I said up top, this wasn't a BS record. They had broken up after the last disastrous album. So given that, if Deep Purple represent the far left of the dial as safe and progressive and Ozzy & Dio are turned tight to the right fighting for the goth-dragon-fighter D&D crowd, this lands squarely in the middle. Not as sexy as Whitesnake. Not as boring as Rainbow.

Grade: D+
ASIde: In for the Kill, Seventh Star
BlindSide: Turn to Stone
DownSide: No Stranger to Love, Danger Zone (Don't worry, Loggins fans...)

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Dio - Sacred Heart

Dio - Sacred Heart - 1985

Amping up his attempt at commercial viability, RJ Dio's last album with Vivan Campbell is a mixed bag. Every metal cliche is present from declaring himself a King of Rock and Roll to super fast licks to cliche's abounding during the era of Spinal Tap (which neuters whatever bullseye they might have hit otherwise). If you like this sort of thing, a lot of this album will satisfy. If you're over it (and, by 1985, who wasn't?) you'll wanna pass it by.

Grade: D+
ASide: King of Rock and Roll, Rock and Roll Children
BlindSide:
DownSide: Shoot Shoot, Hungry Heaven, Sacred Heart

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Whitesnake - Slide It In

Whitesnake - Slide It In - 1984

Is this Kiss? The title track could have fallen off Dynasty. Or been interchangeable with any Paul Stanley rockers from the early 80s. Who knows? Maybe Kiss started copying Whitesnake. I doubt it, though. Everything that made Saints a great record is still here, though. Coverdale is in great voice and the songs are fabulous Pop-Zep Blues breakers and groove machines.
Get past that stupid double entendre of a single (and the obviousness of "Spit it Out"...sheesh) and the rest of the record spins nicely. But make no mistake, this is the David Coverdale show. It's his voice, his vision. He would fire the entire band after this album and replace them (and re-record it) with younger, prettier musicians. Make no mistake, Coverdale has his eyes on the prize and it's within his grasp on this album.

Grade: A-
ASide: Give Me More Time, Love Ain't No Stranger
BlindSide: Standing in the Shadows, Slow and Easy
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Dio - The last in Line

Dio - The Last in Line - 1984

I like this record. I don't expect anything more from it than it is prepared to give.
Taking all he's learned from Rainbow, Elf and Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio made the album of his life with the previous Holy Diver. Why change what works?
Need some speed metal? Sure. "We Rock" will take care of that nicely, thank you. and a few tracks later, so will "I Speed at Night, an awesome shreddattack. Some sludge? How about "The Last in Line"? Radio Friendly Groove metal? "One Night in the City"'s got ya covered.
From top to bottom, there are no surprises here just good solid formula rawk.

Grade: A-
ASide: We Rock, I Speed at Night
BlindSide: Evil Eyes, Egypt (Chains are Out)
DownSide: Breathless

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers - 1984

Ritchie Blackmore! Ian Gillan! Jon Lord! The whole band is back! It's a Mark II DP reunion!
So how is it?!?!?

Eh.

Look, these guys can obviously play. And they know their instruments, how to play them and they know each others' instruments and how to play off them.
That would be great if they had anything to say or something propelling them to create some great psychedelic metal. But craptastic jams like "Mean Streak" seem designed to let their masturbatory musical impulses play out to the the point where an audience really doesn't matter.
I kind of enjoy the music here but only in that I appreciate that it isn't pisspoor. It's about as on par with latter day Genesis. Although "A Gipsy's Kiss" reignites that terrific Blakmore/Lord oneupsmanship that made the band so interesting a decade + before. And "Wasted Sunsets" while trite is a musical excitement and one that leads into the album's most interesting , the quasi-eastern european "Hungry Daze".
There's more to interest a casual listener on Perfect Strangers than one would notice from the first half. PS fits right in the DP canon. It won't surprise you, but it won't fully disappoint.

Grade: C
ASide: Knocking at Your Backdoor, Hungry Daze
BlindSide: A Gipsy's Kiss (I know it sounds like it fell off a Roger taylor record, but I think that's why I like it. ), Wasted Sunsets