Black Sabbath Sabotage

BMG.

Released in 1975, Sabotage occupies a curious space in the Sabiverse: excluded from the preceding classic canon, yet in a different league from the subsequent rapidly diminishing returns. It’s always ripe for reappraisal and this 4-LP box set does that job handsomely. Extensive sleevenotes provide context for the album’s conflicted quality, a product of both artistic indecision – to rock or to prog, that was the question – and the band’s energy being diverted into a year-long legal battle with dodgy managers. Ozzy Osbourne was on the slide into drug hell and Black Sabbath were on the verge of coming apart. Yet doubt and frustration got channelled into some extraordinary music: Hole In The Sky is biblical Tony Iommi riff lore, while The Writ has Ozzy audibly combusting with fury. Three live discs from the 1975 US tour (13 unreleased tracks; the box also contains a replica Madison Square Garden tourbook and poster, and a Japanese 7-inch single) reveal a band operating at remarkable intensity given their various internal ructions. The band’s sleeve couture, however, remains very silly.