BLACK SABBATH
Technical Ecstasy (50th Anniversary Edition)
Rhino US
Rel: 20 Jul 26
Metal
| Side 1 - Track 1. Back Street Kids |
| Side 1 - Track 2. You Won't Change Me |
| Side 1 - Track 3. It's Alright |
| Side 1 - Track 4. Gypsy |
| Side 2 - Track 1. All Moving Parts(Stand Still) |
| Side 2 - Track 2. Rock 'N' Roll Doctor |
| Side 2 - Track 3. She's Gone |
| Side 2 - Track 4. Dirty Woman |
Originally released in 1976 and now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Technical Ecstasy still remains one of the most obtuse outliers in the Black Sabbath canon. Following the numerous legal troubles that plagued 1975's Sabotage, the band would relocate to Miami, Florida to commence work for their seventh album (or total identity crisis). Leaving production duties to guitarist Tony Iommi, who himself had become hyper-focused on the band emulating their more accessible contemporaries in the likes of Queen and Foreigner, the resulting material would fall somewhere between classic rock prog-pop while featuring a heavier reliance than ever before on keyboards and synth lines. There's even the pop ballad 'It's Alright', which would mark the first Sabbath track not to be sung by Ozzy Osbourne, with drummer Bill Ward handling duties. While a far cry from the psych-tinged metallic gloom the band initially cast over Birmingham, Technical Ecstasy is rife complex guitar work, saccharine melodies and some of the most bizarrely jovial and fun material to come from the OG line-up. Just give 'Rock 'n' Roll Doctor' a spin and realise that no other band steeped so heavily in drug abuse, musical insecurity and consumed by lack of direction, could ever pull out such an unadulterated banger.