Deep Purple's Rapture of the Deep - Win a free copy!

This is a Black Sabbath site, right? What am I doing talking about the 18th studio Deep Purple album? Well, it's a damn good piece of music, and it comes out tomorrow. If you haven't pre-ordered a copy, then good lord you should do so. This is a great album. This now marks the fourth studio Purple album since Ritchie Blackmore left the band for good. Personally I feel it's awfully close to being the best of that group (Purpendicular is the best of the Morse era albums, I think). As a side note, all four of these albums have been released since Black Sabbath last released a studio album in June of 1995.

ALBUM ORDERING INFO: First are some links you can use to order the album.

US: Amazon.com's Rapture of the Deep Page
UK: Amazon.co.uk's Rapture of the Deep Page
UK: Amazon.co.uk's Rapture of the Deep Special Packaging Page

WIN A FREE COPY OF RAPTURE: Second is a giveaway I'm doing. As per my contests in the past, you'll need to answer a few trivia questions about Deep Purple. If you get them all right, you'll be put into a drawing for a copy of Rapture of the Deep. Here are the questions you need to answer:

1. Which former Black Sabbath members are on Rapture of the Deep?
   
2. Which Deep Purple song did Black Sabbath play live in 1983?
   
3. What is the most recent project that involved both Ian Gillan & Tony Iommi on the same album? Hint: It's not out yet.
   
4. Who briefly played guitar for Deep Purple inbetween Ritchie Blackmore's departure & Steve Morse's arrival?
   
5. What is the air speed velocity of an unladened swallow?
   

A few personal notes:

I saw Deep Purple back in 1994 when Steve Morse had just joined the band (the gig I saw with him was his third ever). In that review, I wrote this.. "Very good concert by a band who surprised me. Well worth the long trip to see them, and I hope they continue." Boy have they continued, and they're like a good wine, they're getting better with age. Their last few albums havent' done well sales wise in the US, which is a damn crime.

Purpendicular was spectacular, one of the best of Purple's entire catalogue.
Abandon I didn't care for, but some did
Bananas was a wonderful album, but I think suffered from the perception from the goofy title.

Rapture of the Deep is very much a traditional sounding Deep Purple album, and when I started writing this review, I planned on doing a track by track review of it, which is something I generally do. The problem I have is that the album is so universally solid, I'd end up saying most the same thing for every track. This is a great album from start to finish. Even the tracks that others feel are weak in some other reviews I've read I like. It's been said Ian Gillan isn't the screamer he used to be, and that's for sure. He can't wail like he could when he was in his 20's, but his "modern voice" fits the material perfectly. There's rockers, ballads, and everything inbetween. A great piece of modern music from one of the bands that defined hard rock. The lyrics in the song "MTV" are fairly amusing, and when I saw Purple turn up on Eddie Trunk's show on VH1 this weekend, that's all I could think of. :)

I'll probably have an updated review later on, but for now all I can tell you is that you should buy this album. Use the ordering links above.

If this isn't enough about Rapture of the Deep, you should check out The Highway Star's Rapture of the Deep page. It contains sevral reviews, several band promo pictures, and is a great page about the album. In fact, if you're a fan of Purple, you should spend some time poking around their site. The Highway Star has existed longer than I've been running this Black Sabbath site, and their site was my original inspiration for doing this one. Lots of purply goodness there.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:59 PM

Another Tony Martin Update

Another day, another Tony Martin update. As the release of his new solo album gets closer, we get more and more updates. First up is some info I got from Tony directly. It concerns the Japanese release of "Scream". I asked if the Japanese version of the album would have a unique track like so many albums do. Here's what Tony had to say about it:

The Japanese have an extra track called "Unbearable" it's whacky!!!! I wrote it with my other son Sam and it's a really modern Rap metal track. Love it!

So there will be another track from the Scream album if you have access to the Japanese version.

Additionally, there's a new interview with Tony online where he talks about a whole range of things, from his time in Black Sabbath to all the projects he's sung on in the last several years (Rondinelli, Cage, M3, etc), to lots on his new solo album, the Whole Lotta Metal shows; he even remarks on the Sharon Osbourne/Iron Maiden/egg thing. :) Make sure and check it out, it's a great interview.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:38 AM

Tony Martin's Scream Update #2

Two days ago I brought you an update on Tony Martin's Scream, his new album due out shortly. I've got another update for you, with some more information.

This can truly be called a "solo" album, as Tony Martin himself plays most everything on it. Now it's not all him, obviously, but a lot of it is. Here's Tony's own words on who plays what on "Scream".

Ok the line up is

Me,.... me,.....me,..... er ...me, ......

Actually I play a lot of stuff myself, I play the bass on everything, I play some guitar but my son Joe plays most of it, I play Violin, Geoff plays most of the keyboards although I had a part played by John Taylor who is a GREAT player but unknown to most. I also kept a guitar solo part played by Pedro Howse who is Geezer Butlers ....... nephew I think? He helped with Bitter Sweet.

Mostly that's it, I didn't really intend on doing most of it myself but as I was writing it and I needed a part playing I just picked up the intrument I wanted and did it, then the other guys went over what I had done in parts to make it better.

Apart from the drums!!!!! That was different.... Obviously Cozy isn't around to re-play stuff so I had to use the computer to make that work. The original drum track was not bad but I needed to get a chorus into a different place in one part and the cymbles were a little distorted in places so I had to repeat parts of the drum track to get what the song needed. It took a LONG time to acheive, mostly because it was important to keep the integrity of the drum track, and also his name. But apart from THAT!!! I also had to try and match the Cozy track to the rest of the album, in fact I neded up matching th ealbum to Cozy's track, Raising Hell became the benchmark for the rest of the songs. So It took a long time to finish.

There are another 22 Cozy tracks I could work with, the one I mentioned on my site is still around but i had to leave it off this album, I just wasn't happy with the lyrics. I wanted to use it as Cozy heard it but to honest it sounds wrong!!! So I'd like to work on that one longer before I release it on you guys.

I went on to ask him who then is playing in his touring band, and this is who he told me was in it:

Geoff Nicholls on Keyboards
Danny Needham on Drums
Jamie Mallander on Bass
Joe Harford on guitar
Fabio Cerrone on guitar
Tony Martin on vocals

Now that I've had it for a few days to listen to it completely destroys his original 1992 solo album. This is far superior in every way. As I said a couple of days ago if you were a fan of Tony's tenure in Black Sabbath, you should check this out. As a bonus, here's a fan review of the album which I saw online yesterday. It was written by someone calling himself "Lucifer" (There's an original fan nickname). Anyway he really seemed to enjoy it. Check it out. Don't forget, if you want to pre-order the album, you can do so with the links here:

Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:28:34 -0000
From: "Lucifer" {address withheld}
Subject: Tony Martin - Scream Review

Tony Martin - Scream
MTM Records (MTM MUSIC no.: 0681-149) released: November 18th, 2005)
rated 9/10!

Tracklist:
01. Raising Hell
02. Bitter Sweet
03. Faith In Madness
04. I'm Gonna Live Forever
05. Scream
06. Surely Love Is Dead
07. The Kids Of Today Don't Understand The Blues
08. Wherever You Go
09. Field Of Lies

First let me say that this album has been a long time coming with Tony Martins debut solo release being "Back Where I Belong" which was released back in 1992! In the mean time there have been releases with Black Sabbath, Misha Calvin, Aldo Giuntini Project, Rondinelli, and two excellent albums with The Cage Project and an album with Empire so he's kept busy.

Well here is the follow up to Back Where.... and has been worth the wait? Well to be honest yes! So here we go with a track by track:

Raising Hell
Not bad for an album opener, heavy and melodic, this song also features the late Cozy Powell on drums. A Promising start to the album I'll give it 4/5

Bitter Sweet
Oh My GoD!!!!! Tony does Black Sabbath!!!!!! I swear this song could have fitted onto any Sabbath release Tonys ever worked on! Bitter sweet is a little reminicent of Virtual death from Cross Purposes, but with more colour/tempo/texture changes. A brilliant song, excelent lyrics and some nice heavy guitars! I swear SAbbath fans should love this track! I'll Give this 5/5

Faith in Madness
Nice acoustic opening, then come the riffs. Again another excellent song, slow and doomy with lots of colour and texture changes Give this one 4/5

Im Gonna Live Forver
More melodic than the previous two tracks without loosing any of thwe power, I love this track with some Jon Lord sounding keyboards from Geoff Nichols (another ex sabbath member)This songs like a statement of intent! More in the style of say Empire then Sabbath with which i see no problems i'll give this one 5/5

Scream
Album title track, long build up intro, excellent track with some excellent double bass drumming from er Tony Martin, my god he not only sings, writes and produce's this he also plays the drum and bass parts through out the entire the album my god I'll give this one 5/5

Surely Love Is Dead
Nice heavy track, excellent use of keyboards too, this songs like a cross between Tony's sabbath, cage and empire releases and it really works I've got to give it another 4/5

The Kids Of Today Dont Understand The Blues
The strangest track on this album, melodic and i guess a fun song from Tony to lighten the mood. Its not my favourite track here but i have to say im singing along as i type lol! Its a grower but i still think its the weakest track so far I'll give this a 3/5

Wherever You Go
A beautiful acoustic guitar and keyboard driven ballad. This truly is a beautiful song. Short and sweet and just about 3 minutes long indfact the shortest track on the album. A brilliant mood changer for the album too. I'll give this one a 5/5

Field Of Lies
The Intro is pure Geoff Nichols, brings back memories of Sabbath tracks like Kill In The Spirit World, When Death Calls, Eternal Idol etc. Another heavy track in the Sabbath vein and this song really does remind me of the eternal idol for some reason not that it sounds anything like it. A Brilliant album closer! I'll Give this excellent track 5/5

So summing up, well here we have a fine collection of tracks, which showcase Tony Martin the singer (He's in fine Voice here) the song writter, and the musician (as i said he plays bass, drums etc) and we are introduced to his son on guitar too!)

I highly reconmend this to anyone whom has ever liked any of Tonys Previous projects, to Sabbath fans (esp. post ozzy era) and in general fans of classic rock performed the way it should be! The only faulf i Hve with this album is that its so short at 43 minutes or so.

Overall 9/10 and cant wait to see him live!

Buy it!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:05 PM

New Bill Ward Interview Online

There's a new interview with Bill Ward online now. It's with the website allaboutjazz.com, and you should definitely check it out, as Bill talks about his career playing the drums and how it felt to be influenced by the blues growing up in Birmingham, England. Here's a few quotes from the article:

AAJ: At what age did you start playing?

BW: I think I might have been about four, four or five, because my mother told me that they thought there was something wrong with me because I continually kept tapping on furniture. They thought I had something which, in Birmingham where I was born—or actually I was born in Aston which is in Birmingham—they said that I had Saint Vitus's Dance, and Saint Vitus's Dance is a common term in the midlands for somebody who can't sit still.

AAJ: How would you say the group's creative approach differed in the early days as compared to later albums?

BW: That's a tough question actually. I think it comes in several parts. The first three albums or four albums, for me at least, I felt like they came out of big jams because we literally would sit in a room and just jam and a song would come from that. Giving credit where credit is due, I think that Tony would jam a little bit more than everybody else [Laughs], definitely work more on the arrangements and spend a lot more time with the song.

“Being influenced by dynamic music, I felt quite suited for blues and jazz which is pretty much what we really liked to play, especially more traditional blues.”

You can check out the full interview over at the All About Jazz site here.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:38 AM

Tony Martin Update

We've got a good update about Tony Martin today over a few subjects. First is his new album, "Scream", which is due out in the US/Canada on Nov 8th, and will be out in the UK on Nov 21st. This has been in the works for a very long time, and you're about to get a taste of Tony's vocals again real soon. It's going to be on MTM Records in most of the world (it will be on Avalon in Japan).

I got my pre-release copy yesterday, and while I''ve only listened to it twice since I got it, I have to say it's really killer stuff, especially if you were a fan of the Headless Cross / Tyr era of Black Sabbath and some of the other projects he's appeared on lately (Cage, Empire, Rondinelli). It's a blast to hear Cozy Powell behind the drum kit again (even if it's only for one song). Tony sounds great, and there's some nice crunchy guitar work on this disc. I'll have a proper review later once I've had a chance to give it a good listen, but you definitely won't want to miss this. I'm also calling on the "If it ain't Ozzy, it ain't Black Sabbath" fans to take a chance on this one, too. Long time (1980-2004) Black Sabbath keyboardist Geoff Nicholls is also on the disc as well. Tony's son Joe handles most of the guitars. I'll have a complete lineup list once I get a production copy with proper credits.

If you want to check it out right now, you can download sound samples from all the songs on the CD over here at melodicrock.com in mp3 format. If you want to pre-order the disc, you can do so with the following links:

I have more information about Scream on the discography page for it on my site.

In other Tony Martin news, he's announced some concert tour dates. They're all in Europe for now, but here's what he has listed:

Nov. 09 – Graz, AUT - Explosiv
Nov. 10 - Wien, AUT - Planet Music
Nov. 11 - Ried, AUT - Kiek
Nov. 12 – Moscow, RUS - private event
Nov. 13 – Moscow, RUS - B2 club
Nov. 15 – Pilzen, CZR - Rockclub
Nov. 16 – Budapest, HUN - A38
Nov. 18 - Bassano del grappa, ITA - Transilvania
Nov. 19 - Firenze, ITA - Ministry
Nov. 20 - Roma, ITA - Stazione Birra
Nov. 23 - Latina, ITA - Transilvania
Nov. 24 - Como, ITA - Black Horse
Nov. 25 - Torino, ITA - Transilvania

If there's any more that are to be released, I'll be sure and cover them here as well. You're going to want to check out Scream when it's released in a couple of weeks, that's for sure. If you manage to catch Tony in concert in one of these gigs, please send in a concert report, I'd love to cover that.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:53 PM

Bill Ward's 2005 Drum Kit Information

A small piece of information that drummers might be interested in.

Bill Ward has posted the layout of his Black Sabbath 2005 drum kit online at his website. There is a diagram there from his drum tech with details of all the gear in his kit.

Check it out!

http://www.billward.com/gallery/billsolo/wardkit2005

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:44 PM

Ronnie Dio, Tony Iommi, & the Future of Black Sabbath

There's been much speculation recently online about Ronnie James Dio "rejoining" Black Sabbath. I haven't said much about it because I wanted to get official word before I did.

A week ago or so, I saw some posts online (including one on my own forums) which included this text:

Ronnie James Dio is working with Iommi again! He told me last night. I asked him if he would consider working with Tony again, and Ronnie said "I'm working with Tony now. There's no problem with me and Tony or with Sabbath. In fact we're doing two songs right now to go on a new record called Sabbath - The Ronnie James Dio years!"

Later on, I saw a story online where Ronnie said an interview that he and Tony were going to have new songs on a forthcoming box set entitled "Black Sabbath - The Dio Years".

After I saw both of these, I immediately set out to verify these things on my own, as this would be a MAJOR event in the band's history. So I popped off an email to my contacts at Tony Iommi's office. While I waited for their reply, I saw this text appear on Ronnie Dio's official site:

With respect to the recent rumors of Ronnie's rejoining Black Sabbath, Wendy Dio commented, “Ronnie is not re-joining Black Sabbath. He’s very happy with his own band and will be touring festivals next year with Dio, NOT OZZFEST." She went on to clarify that, "the writing project is just something that may happen between Tony and Ronnie if they have time between their own projects to write one or two songs to be included on the Black Sabbath: The Dio Years box set.”

And then yesterday this text appeared on Tony Iommi's site:

We’d like to thank Wendy Dio for talking sense about the rumours concerning Ronnie Dio and Black Sabbath. To reiterate, Warner Bros Records have been looking at putting out a Sabbath Box Set featuring Ronnie for some time and recently the search for previously unreleased material began. Amongst this, there are unfinished demos but they may not be considered worthwhile, in which case the guys might write something new. This is a long-term album project and no release date has been set.

I did get a private reply from Tony's people, but it basically mirrored the text on their site.

So there we are. The rumours of a Black Sabbath set with the Dio years has been floating around for awhile, but this is the first time we've seen anything semi official regarding it. If I get more news on this, I'll update of course, but for now, I think you should file this under "likely to happen, but not immediately". Bottom line is that Ronnie Dio isn't rejoining Black Sabbath, but he might collaborate with Tony on a couple of songs. That's still something cool. :)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:06 PM

Ozzy's "Under Cover" album due out next Tuesday

Ozzy Osbourne has a new release out this coming Tuesday (in the US, it's coming out Nov 21 in the UK). It's called "Under Cover", and is essentially Disc 4 of the Prince of Darkness set released on it's own with a few other track changes.

The version on Prince of Darkness has 10 tracks, and the Under Cover one has 13. Only one track is not here from the POD version, that being the duet Changes with his daughter Kelly. The ones that are new to this version are "Go Now", "Rocky Mountain Way", "Sunshine of Your Life", & "Woman".

There are two versions of this being released. One is a standard CD version, and another is a DualDisc edition. Side 2 of the DualDisc has a video for the song "In My Life", a half hour segment where Oz talks to his friends about stories from his life, and some other things including footage of Oz trying to light Bill Ward's beard on fire. A complete list of the DualDisc extras is below in the press release.

Here's the full track listing for Under Cover:

1. Rocky Mountain Way
2. In My Life
3. Mississippi Queen
4. Go Now
5. Woman
6. 21st Century Schizoid Man
7. All the Young Dudes
8. For What It's Worth
9. Good Times
10. Sunshine of Your Love
11. Fire
12. Working Class Hero
13. Sympathy for the Devil

I'll have more to say about this once I actually get a copy, but in the meantime, if you're interested in purchasing a copy, you can use the links here:

Regular CD: [ Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk ]
DualDisc: [ Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk ]

Here is the original press release (warts and all, it has a few mistakes):

OZZY OSBOURNE is going UNDER COVER to pay tribute to the songs he covets most on a new DualDisc coming out November 1 on Epic Records. Titled UNDER COVER, the audio side of the 13-track disc features newly recorded versions of OZZY’s personal favorites--including "Woman" (John Lennon), "Rocky Mountain Way" (Joe Walsh) and "Go Now" (The Moody Blues)--plus songs he recorded for 2005’s gold-certified box set Prince Of Darkness, such as “In My Life” (the Beatles), “21st Century Schizoid Man” (King Crimson) and “For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield).

The DVD side of the UNDER COVER DualDisc contains the video for “In My Life,” a stirring collection of archival footage spanning OZZY’s career. Other highlights include the half-hour presentation “Dinner With Ozzy and Friends” where OZZY, as only he can, tells some of his favorite stories to guests who include son Jack Osbourne and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister. In addition, there are classic moments showing OZZY’s repeated attempts to light Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s beard on fire and his encounter with a group of nuns at an airport.

35 years into a massively successful music career--with over 90 millions albums sold--the Grammy Award-winning legend told Revolver (3/05), “For many years now, I’ve thought that it would be great to do some covers, old songs that mean something to me…It’s just me having a bit of fun with some songs that are already proven.” In his Esquire feature (1/05), OZZY clarified the basics for interpreting other artist’s songs, saying “If you’re going to do a cover of a song that has a great melody, don’t change the melody.”

Rolling Stone’s David Fricke reacted to the new cover songs that appeared on OZZY’s four-CD, 52-song Prince of Darkness box set by noting (3/24/05) “…the greatest shock is the authentic force that Osbourne, who was born into poverty and never finished school, brings to his whispered-goth reading of John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero.’ ‘If you want to be a hero,’ Osbourne sings in a searing whine uncannily like Lennon’s, ‘well, just follow me.’” Revolver’s J.D. Considine raved (5/05), “…[covers of] King Crimson’s ‘21st Century Schizoid Man,’ for instance, or Mountain’s ‘Mississippi Queen’ are pure genius.”

OZZY recorded the new songs with producer Mark Hudson, a powerhouse band--Mike Bordin (drums), Jerry Cantrell (guitars) and Chris Wyse (bass)--and guest musicians that included Ian Hunter (vocals on “All The Young Dudes”), Leslie West (guitar solo on “Mississippi Queen”) and Robert Randolph (pedal steel on “Symphony For The Devil,” guitar solo on “21st Century Schizoid Man”).

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:45 PM