I'm sure everyone has chimed in on this but I just want to put my two cents in.

I am a bit disappointed in this album and I kind of blame Rick Rubin because this is what he wanted them to do. It's harmless. It's stale. It's as predictable as any pop album. I know when Iommi is going to go to a fast riff. I know what Ozzy is going to say before he says it. It's seriously Sabbath going through the runs. Back in the day they were just playing and writing. I feel they are aware of doom metal, the impact they made and instead of trying something a bit different they went through a god damn checklist. Some songs are good but one should just listen to the older stuff since its the same thing.

I don't really see a reason for this.

I still need to listen to this. Anyone hear the bonus tracks off the deluxe edition? They any good?

Listen to all four bonus tracks and I think that all deserved to including in the album.
I prefer that 4 bonus to some 'official' songs.

Couldn't bring myself to listen passed the fourth song. Total drivel.

It would have been nice to have Bill Ward on the album and Geezer's bass is not as driven but all in all I really like this record. Glad to hear Ozzy brought his A-game to the proceedings. I doubt most people would prefer another solo album of his to this.

Ozzy did bad. His voice I can understand but the lyrics are so bad. I only care about lyrics if I can actually decipher them and the ones on here were dull and lifeless.

They're insultingly good.

From the interviews, I gather that Geezer wrote many if not most of the lyrics.

While nothing special, I thought they were pretty decent.

I enjoyed pretty much all Iommi, Iommi/Martin (under the name Black Sabbath), Iommi/Hughes (including 7th Star) and Iommi/Gillan (Who Cares + Born Again), all Sabbath with Ozzy before 1979, and all Sabbath with Dio (including the band known as Heaven and Hell).

But this album, 13, no, I don't really enjoy. I can listen to it and be mildly entertained by thoughts such as "Oh, a bit from Planet Caravan.. Oh, here comes Snowblind now, where is my Volume 4 CD ?. Do I really know all songs from Never Say Die! ? Perhaps Technical Ecstacy wasn't so bad after all, I should give it another listen." Etc. So yes, I can listen to 13, but really, it's not great. As much as Forbidden seemed out of place, sterile and unnecessary, this one feels calculated and lifeless. Others have said it better, I won't repeat.

The greatest latest thing Iommi has done is Out of My Mind with Who Cares, and there's also Jon Lord on it.

He was doing that shit partly because he enjoyed that kind of music, and partly because it was the thing to do to even hope at making some kind of money.

I don't think Iommi listens to St. Vitus, old Trouble and Pentagram when he gets home. In the 70s he was heavily into Queen, and his favorite singers in the 80s were Deep Purple and Rainbow singers. He's probably in some jazz too, and some other things that musicians his age like, but I'm sure the music he was making in the mid-eighties was closer to what he listened to at the time than the music he's making since Headless Cross under the names Black Sabbath and Heaven and Hell.

memorable for pre-release hype, it also made the charts, past that, utterly forgotten at this point

I don't know, I've been listening to this for about a week now. I kind of like it.

I think the first 2 songs *really* evoke other Sabbath tunes. The 2nd half of the record is more where they stretch out a bit.

I'd like to hear the bonus tracks.

Rubin's production is predictable and uninteresting.

Some of the lyrics are nonsense. Some are a little better.

I still like Iommi's riffs. I *always* like Iommi's riffs, even if some of them are a re-hash of older stuff.

It's not going to make its way into the pantheon of great Black Sabbath, but given that I never thought I would ever hear this, I'll take it. And I enjoy it.