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BLACK SABBATH
Sabotage: Super Deluxe
Edition BMG
8/10
Metal progenitors’ sixth, expanded across four discs
Sabbath’s earliest records were powered by all manner of dark and infernal themes – the Devil, witchcraft, the horrors of war – but the evil that creeps through Sabotage refers to a topic rather more earthbound: lawyers. It was recorded while the band were locked in legal acrimony with their former manager, and the frustration sometimes rises to the surface. “You bought and sold me with your lying words,” cries Ozzy on “The Writ”. This is second-tier Sabbath, arriving at the waning of their imperial phase.