boc4ever

Take three Godfathers of metal and add Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan and what do you get? Should have been the beginning of a memorable and long lasting union. However, it fell apart before it even got going. In my eyes, this album was a return to form for the band; gloomy, heavy, riff driven metal.

I'll never forget the day I purchased it. I was at Grand Records at Exton Mall and I was looking for something new in the metal genre to sink my teeth into. The clerk said, "The new Black Sabbath just came out." I asked, "Who is the singer?" He informed me it was Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. "And it is good?" I asked. He told me it was incredible. I didn't know much about Deep Purple at that point, so I was skeptical anyone was going to adequately fill Ozzy's shoes. I hadn't really embraced Dio and really didn't appreciate that era until several years later. More or less after wearing the groves off "Holy Diver" and "Last in Line." So I plunked down my $5.29 for the cassette, as did my best friend and left with a real sense of impending buyer's remorse. As Trashed came blaring through my speakers, I was sure the clerk hadn't steered me wrong. Disturbing the Priest was some of the most evil sounding (non death metal) I had ever heard. Zero the Hero was a thundering monster. I even loved the slower title track and felt Keep it Warm wrapped the album up nicely.

It seems that most metal heads either consider this an underappreciated classic or an atrocity that should never have happened. There were a couple of things that happened as a result of this: 1) There was a stonehenge monument in danger of being crushed by a dwarf 2) Ian Gillan rejoined Deep Purple shortly afterward and created the gem Perfect Strangers 3) Arguably, Sabbath didn't put out another good album until Dio rejoined in 1992 and then the reunion with Ozzy

Where do you stand?

Trashed Uncensored Video

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/v7SOt-WyNGk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Zero the Hero Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwoT9_StEfY

Disturbing the Priest live:

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Born Again Interview MTV:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Zq6FUM4q2XU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Born Again Studio Cut:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4yvKCe1eD_w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

nodeerforamonth

I just "discovered" the unmixed version on the internets last week. Sounds way better than what was officially released!

Good album, even though it wasn't Ozzy or Dio singing.

sniper007

Damn it i saw the title black sabbath and said yes, but then the album born again and said no. I would like to talk about the album but can't because i have tried to get the album online, but paying $40 bucks or more is not what i had in mind.

B5Erik

Great album. It is darker and sounds more ominous and evil than the Dio era albums (that's not better or worse, just different).

Gillan wasn't really happy with the musical direction and quickly recognized that the fit between he and Sabbath wasn't a perfect one. He honored his commitment, though, and finished the album and tour - and then went back to the newly reformed Deep Purple (which, the story goes, he knew was going to happen at the end of '83 or beginning of '84 before he joined Sabbath).

Still, despite Gillan's reservations the album was really good and the tour generated a lot of positive response.

Sabbath did put out some really good albums with Tony Martin afterward, but Born Again was the last one until '92 that got any attention in the States.

benedict

I bought the vinyl and played it once, maybe twice. Years later, I bought the CD and, again, played it a maximum of two times.

I'm afraid that I couldn't get past the muddy production to reach a decision about the underlying tracks.

Maybe one day I'll spin them again. Or they'll release a decent re-mix.

BearFan

I re-picked up this on Vinyl a few months ago and really enjoyed it, too bad it was not mixed better, there are some really good songs here. Also too bad it is the only album he did with Sabbath.

This interview with Ian is funny as hell, especially given the Spinal Tap connection to the Born Again Tour

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Hokeyboy

I'm going to have to give "Born Again" a serious listen again.

I bought it many years back, gave it the good ol' college try, but could never warm up to it. Gillan just didn't seem to fit right with Sabbath, and the songs weren't entirely all that memorable. Plus with that thin, cruddy production, it was a tough row to hoe.

Phodg

Never quite worked for me. Always loved Gillan's voice and Sabbath's music, but it just didn't sound right together.
I agree with a poster earlier - the unmixed you can find on t'internet sounds better, and it also has an unreleased track - "The Fallen".

rw2516

With the exception of "Trashed" I've never thought it was a particularly good album. Doesn't totally suck either. Sounds odd, like a transporter accident on Star Trek where the molecules of Black Sabbath got mixed with Deep Purple. The thing I like about it is that it is unique and sounds unlike anything else. Comes in handy when you're in the mood for something different.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, it's not a terrible album, but it's also not particularly great, either.

The problem with it is that it sounds like a generic heavy metal album from a second-tier NWOBHM act (like Grim Reaper) and not Black-fucking-Sabbath. Which is pretty much the problem with all of the post-Dio Sabbath material. And a lot of that material from that era isn't necessarily bad, but it's underwhelming when you consider it comes from the guys who laid the foundation for the whole genre of music.

cactusoly

I love this album. I think its better than many of the Ozzy albums. Trashed is one of my fav Sabbath songs Disturbing the Priest and Zero The Hero are great too.

Jason

Got it on cassette when it first came out, and it's always been a favorite, especially Zero the Hero. I hate to call it goofy, but it's so over the top when compared to the more fantasy-based music they did with Dio that it's kinda hard to take it seriously now. Gillan really was a poor fit for this type of music.

Anyhow, I played the hell out of it in high school, paid over $20 for the CD, have the vinyl stuck around somewhere, and still enjoy it today.

sniper007

Sanctuary has set a May 30 release date for the deluxe-edition reissue of BLACK SABBATH's "Born Again" album.

"Born Again" was the only album by BLACK SABBATH featuring Ian Gillan — who was at the time a solo artist and former singer for DEEP PURPLE — on vocals.

Gillan had first turned down the offer to join BLACK SABBATH but his manager later convinced him to a meeting with Iommi and the band's bass guitarist, Geezer Butler. Iommi and Butler met with Gillan at The Bear public house in Oxford and Gillan officially joined the band in February 1983.

Released in October 1983, "Born Again" was a commercial success. It was the highest-charting BLACK SABBATH album in the United Kingdom since "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and became an American Top 40 hit. Despite this, it became the first BLACK SABBATH album to not have any RIAA certification (gold or platinum) in the U.S.

"Born Again" deluxe-edition reissue track listing:

Disc 1:

01. Trashed
02. Stonehenge
03. Disturbing The Priest
04. The Dark
05. Zero The Hero
06. Digital Bitch
07. Born Again
08. Hot Line
09. Keep It Warm

Disc 2:

01. The Fallen
02. Stonehenge
03. Hot Line
04. War Pigs
05. Black Sabbath
06. The Dark
07. Zero The Hero
08. Digital Bitch
09. Iron Man
10. Smoke On The Water
11. Paranoid

Jason

Where are the live tracks from? I had a boot of radio broadcast of a show in Massachusetts that was decent.

Dr Mabuse

I was tripping hard on a multi-state road trip. For whatever reason we played that album over and over.

I have weird and sometimes wonderful memories of that album.

Flashback

Always liked this album even the mix or whatever was terrible. The riff for Zero the Hero was lifted by GnR for Paradise City. If this release is better then I am all in.

Vlyger

I remember going to the local Music+ record store and being scared of the album cover when I was a kid.



My favorite song on the album is "Digital Bitch". I read somewhere that the song is supposed to be about Sharon Osbourne.

Josh-da-man

I think one of the guys in the band, when asked who it was about, said that it didn't have anything to do with computers (as stated in the lyrics).

cungar

Completely agree with this review. One of the most putrid albums ever released.


http://allmusic.com/album/born-again-r2010/review

Review by Eduardo Rivadavia

The idea sure looked good on paper, but when former Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan joined Black Sabbath for 1983's dreadful Born Again album, the grim reality was that Gillan's bluesy vocal style and oftentimes humorous lyrics were completely incompatible with the lords of doom and gloom. Widely deemed the band's creative nadir (although a few later efforts like Cross Purposes and Forbidden give it a run for its money), Born Again also featured one of the worst album covers ever (it's been voted!), and the subsequent world tour was so troubled and tragicomic that the band's Stonehenge stage set wound up serving as inspiration for the ultimate rock & roll spoof movie, This Is Spinal Tap, when it was discovered to be too large to fit inside most venues! Born Again's equally atrocious "production" leaves one with the distinct impression that, in a misguided attempt to record the heaviest album ever, Black Sabbath came away with the muddiest instead. Among the smoking ruins that pass for its songs, one might find it possible to appreciate Gillan's trademarked double entendres on "Disturbing the Priest," pick out a decent melody within the messy title track, and get down to some mercifully straightforward headbanging with "Digital Bitch" and the album's lone classic, "Trashed." But the remaining detritus, composed of embarrassing numbers like "Zero the Hero," "Hot Line," and "Keep It Warm" and pointless sound effect interludes "Stonehenge" and "The Dark," is simply beyond painful. By comparison, even the barely-recognizable-as-Sabbath material found on 1986's belated comeback, Seventh Star -- originally planned as a Tony Iommi solo effort, to be fair -- sounds pretty damn good. But by then, Black Sabbath's greatly anticipated association with Ian Gillan had gone down as one of heavy metal's all-time greatest disappointments, and nearly killed the genre's founding fathers in the process.

boc4ever

Cool news about the deluxe edition. Hopefully the remastering will be worth the upgrade in itself. The live disc definitely has me sold.

Josh-da-man

I think the album cover is awesome!

The album is called "Born Again" and there's an evil-looking devil baby, complete with red skin, glowing eyes, horns and claws, on the cover.

sniper007

Here are some more details unofficial BLACK SABBATH web site Black-Sabbath.com has revealed more details about the forthcoming deluxe-expanded-edition reissue of BLACK SABBATH's "Born Again" album. Due in the U.K. on May 30 via Sanctuary, the two-disc effort is expected to feature the following track listing:

Disc 1: (marked as "Original Album")

01. Trashed
02. Stonehenge
03. Disturbing the Priest
04. The Dark
05. Zero The Hero
06. Digital Bitch
07. Born Again
08. Hot Line
09. Keep It Warm

Disc 2:

01. The Fallen (previously unreleased album session outtake)
02. Stonehenge (extended version)

Recorded live at the Reading Festival on Saturday, August 27, 1983 (BBC "Friday Rock Show" broadcast):

03. Hot Line
04. War Pigs
05. Black Sabbath
06. The Dark
07. Zero The Hero
08. Digital Bitch
09. Iron Man
10. Smoke On The Water
11. Paranoid

boc4ever

The Reading Festival was a decent boot. It will be nice to have a cleaned up version of that.

sniper007

BLACK SABBATH's 'Born Again' Deluxe-Expanded-Edition Reissue Was Remastered, Not Remixed - Apr. 12, 2011
Joe Siegler of the unofficial BLACK SABBATH web site Black-Sabbath.com has revealed more details about the forthcoming deluxe-expanded-edition reissue of BLACK SABBATH's "Born Again" album, which is due in the U.K. on May 30 via Sanctuary. He writes, "It's been heavily rumored for some time now that 'Born Again' was getting a little extra treatment. In the Universal Deluxe Edition series, they went from 'Heaven And Hell' / 'Mob Rules' / 'Live Evil' to the release batch that had 'Seventh Star' and 'Eternal Idol' (November 2010). Then in February 2011, they did 'Dehumanizer'. 'Born Again' got skipped over. I was told earlier in 2010 that 'Born Again' was going to be skipped (even before its turn in the original release order came up), because they were doing some extra work on it, hence the extra time, or 'delay.' I later came to believe from a couple of sources that it was because it was finally getting the legendary 'proper mix.'

"You've all heard the stories about Ian Gillan's hearing the final mix and throwing up. Well, the rumors go that the 2011 release of the album would do away with Mr. Gillan's propensity for vomiting in regards to the final mix.

"When the news broke of what is going to be on the 'Born Again' two-CD Deluxe Edition a couple of days ago, I decided to look into the status of the original album's representation in the package. Much to the disappointment of several people, I was told that the album was not remixed — it was just remastered. When I inquired why, I was told that they couldn't find the original multi-track master tapes that would be needed to do a remix. This was the primary reason for the delay, that they kept trying to track down the multi-tracks to do a remix, but could not. They couldn't delay the release indefinitely, so instead, they opted for a completely new remaster. The only other time the album was remastered was in 1996 for the Castle remaster series.

"It's disappointing yes, but all is not lost.

"[BLACK SABBATH guitarist] Tony Iommi's manager did go on to say this: 'The tapes have been held by a number of labels — Vertigo, Castle, Sanctuary, Universal, and moved around, which is why we still have hopes that they have simply been separated.'

"They haven't completely given up hope on the 'proper remix' project, which is good news."

Read more at Black-Sabbath.com.

sniper007

Black sabbath - born again (deluxe) arrived in the mail few days ago. Let me first say this album is AWESOME. Trashed, disturbing the priest, digital bitch are my favorites. From top to bottom this is a solid album.