Short Reviews [Black Sabbath - 2005 - “Fused”]

I know that, formally – or, rather, nominally – “Fused” comes as a collaboration between Tony IOMMI and Glenn HUGHES (the two main stars behind Black Sabbath’s ill-fated 1986 album “Seventh Star”), but it’s just because Tony then had a deal with big deal Ozzy Osbourne showman not to release anything under the Black Sabbath moniker without him on board. Nonetheless, along with “The Devil You Know” (a CD by the band’s second classic line-up), I do consider “Fused” just another Black Sabbath album. It not only has all the trademarks of the Brummies’ classic doom-metal sound, appearing in some ways like a cross between “Mob Rules” and “The Eternal Idol” (my sixth and fifth favorite Black Sabbath outing respectively), it also posesses genuine musical magic, throughout all its 10 tracks, Glenn singing just perfectly, as a true Sabbath man. Not a single note would I remove from this – so highly underrated – masterpiece, but the last two songs on the album, The Spell and I Go Insane, are just killing, Black Sabbath’s most progressive creations since 1978’s “Never Say Die” (more than a merely milestone recording, which gave birth to the whole Progressive Metal genre), both full of drama. I cannot listen to them without tears in my eyes, because I know: Tony has cancer. Don’t give up, Tony, please! Don’t you really realize that the whole Heavy Metal Epoch will be lost without you? God bless you!