Black Sabbath to reunite with Ozzy Osbourne

Written for The Print (NUI Maynooth's student paper) for the 29th of November 2011 issue

                On the 11^th of November 2011, with much rejoice from the heavy metal world, the band many consider to be the originators of the genre as we know today Black Sabbath announced that they would be reuniting with original lead singer and icon Ozzy Osbourne for a world tour and to record new material for 2012. On the 11/11/11, a video of 3 minutes and 31 seconds in length was posted to the bands official Youtube which was posted on their website and Facebook page detailing the achievements Sabbath received since its birth in 1968, building the suspense leading to the words: “2012. Black Sabbath reunites”.

Speculations and rumours concerning a reunion have been rampant for years. In the past, Osbourne has reunited with his band to headline Ozzfest, the last instance of this being in 2006. Since then, Ozzy has stated that he would like to get back to work with Sabbath, but he did not think it would be possible as they had attempted to record new material in the early 21^st century, but it didn’t work out. In August of this year, a journalist from Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham claimed that guitarist Tommy Iommi told him the band were back in the studio on the 15^th of August “getting the show back on the road”. Two days later, Iommi sent out a statement from his own website stating that this was a complete exaggeration and it was untrue.

On the day of the official announcement, all four members of Black Sabbath held an event at Hollywood’s Whisky-a-Go-Go, hosted by punk icon Henry Rollins of Black Flag. At this, the band gave the news for the first time of their planned tour and album. They also suggested that the new material will be similar to the sound Sabbath began with. This sound is synonymous with slow heavy riffs, fuzzed guitars and plenty of uses of the tritone (or the diabolus in musica, the Devil’s interval) and dissonance. It is the sound that became known as heavy metal and, even further down the line, doom metal, particularly in their 1971 LP Master of Reality with Iommi’s ominous riffs and Ozzy’s melancholic vocals. This album would directly influence doom artists such as Sleep or Electric Wizard in the 90’s.

Some Scandinavian and Russian dates planned for Black Sabbath’s world tour in 2012 have been released on their website. The band will also be headlining Download Festival, held in Donington Park, England, usually sometime in June. More dates are expected to be released. 

http://issuu.com/MSUVPSEC/docs/the_print_volume_3_issue_5/15