Black Sabbath
Reunion (Epic 69539)
A lot has changed in rock and roll in the three decades since Black Sabbath first roared out of Birmingham. Amps have gotten bigger, band names have gotten scarier, and metal has gotten heavier. By current standards, the music this band made before singer Ozzy Osbourne flew the coop in 1979 seems almost quaint.
Nonetheless, there's something wonderfully vital about the sound of "Reunion." Bringing Osbourne back together with guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, the double-CD live set marks the first recording this crew has made in 20 years, and the Sabs tear into their tunes with unabashed ferocity.
It helps, of course, that "Reunion" was recorded in Sabbath's hometown of Birmingham. Not only does the crowd join in lustily at points, answering Osbourne's vocals on "War Pigs" and echoing Iommi's guitar on "Iron Man," but it reacts to the band with such unabashed enthusiasm that Osbourne's occasional hectoring ("Louder!") seems almost unnecessary.
Still, where an album was recorded matters far less than where it takes the listener, and in this case, the answer is: back to basics.
Apart from two bonus studio tracks, "Psycho Man" and "Selling My Soul," "Reunion" draws almost exclusively upon classics from the first four Black Sabbath albums. Obviously, these are the most familiar titles in the Sabbath songbook - are there any metal fans who don't know the riff from "Iron Man"? - but the band isn't just playing a greatest-hits show.
Instead, what the four have managed to recapture is the craziness and chemistry that made those songs so startling in the first place. So in addition to a wonderfully demented vocal from Osbourne, this version of "Black Sabbath" finds Iommi, Butler and Ward generating the same kind of improvisational electricity that lit up the original recording. Likewise, there's enough deviltry at work in "N.I.B." to turn even casual fans into head-banging fanatics.
After hearing how good the live numbers are, though, longtime listeners may be a bit disappointed by the two new studio recordings. "Psycho Man" comes closest to classic Sabbath, from the crazed-killer lyric to Iommi's thickly chorded riffage, but its multi-tracked vocals and elaborate melodic structure seem unnecessarily complicated compared with the older material.
But even if these old dogs have trouble with new tricks, it's hard to top the way they do the old ones. ***
The Best of Friends (Point Blank 48424)
Back in the '60s, blues-crazed rockers lived for the opportunity -- to get into the studio and jam with some legend or other. Later, as they learned more about the music they loved, they often looked back with chagrin at how green they were then. Fortunately, John Lee Hooker has allowed some of those rockers to make amends. "The Best of Friends," which mixes three new recordings with tracks collected from his last five albums, finds Hooker playing with everybody from Bonnie Raitt to Carlos Santana, and if the new versions don't quite eclipse the originals, neither do they sound openly imitative, from a fierce "Don't Look Back" with Van Morrison to a snarling "Boogie Chillen" with Eric Clapton. ***
J.D. Considine
Kids
Flumpa's World
Frogs, Rain Forests & Other Fun Facts (Imagination Records 5123-2)
Maybe it's just the jaded opinion of one who has heard more than her fair share of children's music, but "Frogs, Rain Forests & Other Fun Facts" does not do service to the species. OK, how about as that other curious hybrid, environmental music? Frogs, after all, are the cool, endangered creature of the moment. But an elevator is not the environment we're talking about. And bland, easy-listening tunes about a frog named Flumpa and his tropical universe do not do justice to the little guy's plight. Nor do lyrics like: "Life as a reptile or an amphibian/On the land or in the water/They're so different/But similar in many ways." Nature is infinitely more complex and less benign than this collection suggests. On the kid front, the green front and the honesty front, Flumpa is a flop. *
Stephanie Shapiro
Pop/rock
Cypress Hill
IV (Columbia 69037)
The members of Cypress Hill are hardly the best role models in hip-hop. According to their raps, they smoke dope, enjoy nasty sex and settle scores with violence. So how come the group's fourth album, "IV," is such fun? It helps that this crew never takes itself too seriously, pushing its bad-boy image almost to the point of parody and peppering the album with Cheech & Chong-style comedy. That's not to say Cypress isn't serious; "Looking Through the Eye of a Pig" offers a sobering view of the price rappers pay for having an outlaw image. But the album's real strength is the chemistry between B. Real, Sen-Dog and D.J. Muggs, whose interplay ensures there's always a jolt of electricity beneath each deep-thumping groove. ***1/2
J.D. Considine
Des'ree
Supernatural (Sony/550 Music BK-69508)
Seen Mica Paris recently? Heard from Lisa Stansfield lately? They are the chanteuses who were going to lead the next British soul invasion, but their careers mysteriously stalled before the revolution started. Instead, it's been Des'ree's more pop-oriented leanings that have held sway with American audiences. There's nothing on "Supernatural," Des'ree's third album, that soars to the level of "You Gotta Be," the self-empowerment anthem from her last work four years ago, though the mid-tempo "Proud to Be a Dread" is intriguing. But this collection of 11 tunes is a well-crafted piece of pop, and there's nothing wrong with that. ***
Milton Kent
Mediaeval Baebes
Salva Nos (Virgin 46229)
Most people think of the cloistered women who, many centuries ago, lived, worked and sang to give glory to God as merely being nuns. But choral director Katherine Blake likes to think of them as Mediaeval Baebes. Or so goes the premise behind "Salva Nos," a collection of medieval vocal works performed by a dozen alternarock women (including members of the late, lamented Miranda Sex Garden). Although most of the album is given over to quietly gorgeous a cappella numbers, there are also a couple of dance songs, in which the Baebes augment their voices with recorder, tambourine and hurdy-gurdy. Although the Baebes may leave medieval music scholars shaking their heads, "Salva Nos" is the perfect album for anyone who wants to party like it's 999. ***
J.D. Considine
Phil Collins
. . . Hits (Atlantic 83139)
Ever since he hit the big time, critics have taken Phil Collins to task for making records that are slick, tuneful and easily listenable. But after a couple spins through ". . . Hits," you may wonder what, exactly, is wrong with that? Naturally,
". . . Hits" includes all the expected favorites, from "Against All Odds" through "Sussudio" to "Another Day in Paradise." But it also testifies to the incredible amount of ground Collins has covered in his solo career. Indeed, few singers could manage to move as easily from the starkly dramatic "In the Air Tonight" to the bouncy "You Can't Hurry Love," much less from the supple soul of "Easy Lover" to the breathy heartache of "One More Night." ***
J.D. Considine
Everything
Super Natural (Blackbird 38003)
You can't knock the musicianship or the commitment of the members of Everything, a Washington-area rock band made up of college buddies who live together in an old farmhouse and who have studied their instruments since grade school. New disc "Super Natural" could find the band an audience beyond its already healthy Internet following, led by the slinky groove of the single "Hooch." The eclectic rhythms, jazzy horn arrangements and funky vocals of tracks such as the title tune, "Celsius" and "Before It All Ends" also make for a catchy combination. There's something a little overdone, though, about the blue-eyed soul of "Bianca" and the suburban reggae of "Be Gone." The recurring group-sung choruses - think of that big Chumbawumba hit - also become grating after, well, the first one. **1/2
Greg Schneider
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp (Columbia 69602)
Over his last few albums, John Mellencamp has seemed kind of scattered, bouncing from Appalachian-style roots rock to dancebeat-driven pop without any clear sense of direction. Fortunately, he pulls those disparate elements together on "John Mellencamp," delivering an album that makes sense both musically and emotionally. It helps that Mellencamp's musicians play the stylistic elements for color, adding a moaning country fiddle to "It All Comes True" or dropping hip-hop beats into "Break Me Off Some" without changing the songs' essential flavor. But the album's greatest strength is the characters in such songs as "Eden Is Burning" and "I'm Not Running Anymore," whose mixed-up lives mirror the occasional stylistic contradictions in the music. ***
J.D. Considine
Pub Date: 10/22/98