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Iommi/Hughes in the charts
The two Iommi/Hughes albums — The Dep Sessions and Fused, were reissued October 4, and both entered the UK charts. The Dep Sessions at #7, and Fused at #11 in the Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart, at #62 and #77 respectively in the Albums Sales Chart, and at #63 and #80 in the Physical Albums Chart, all for the week of 11 October 2024 – 17 October 2024.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
These remasters have made me change my mind about these releases, fall to your knees and repent if you please! 🙏 I posted this before, but it belongs here:
1. Iommi’s Fused & 1996 Dep Sessions remastered were washed upon my doorstep from the Amazon.
It is time for penance. I never really liked Fused, that nu-metallish sub-Pantera stuff Iommi plays on that album …
But, but, but … I now marvel at the vocal melodies Glenn could still conjure from this brutal riffage, he was really creative. Mind you, the album is still unfunky as hell, but Glenn has explained that only recently in an interview when he said that he leaves his funk fedora at home when he writes with Iommi because the Birmingham Godfather simply doesn’t have that in him.
There is a bonus track called Let It Down Easy that sounds like a twin to the Sabs’ Hot Line on Born Again, mind-numbingly stupid, but great at the same time. I am a man of simple tastes.
https://youtu.be/bbvEJzotvKU
And then there is another track where Glenn does so many melismas towards the end it sounds like he is applying for a job as a Pink Floyd chick background singer. 😂
https://youtu.be/J9Xuack_kq4
Now for the remaster … It sounds crisper and they’ve turned up Glenn’s vocals quite a bit, maybe that is why they have caught my attention more than 19 years ago when this was first released.
Recommended.
Haven’t heard the 1996 Dep Sessions yet …
********************
2. Now listening to the 1996 Dep Sessions, also a crisp remaster with Glenn’s vocals to the forefront. Unsurprisingly, this album is much closer to what the two are known for, i.e. Trapeze circa Medusa era and Black Sabbath somewhere around Vol. 4. The album has a real late 60s/early 70s vibe, as if Tony Iommi had joined fellow Brummies Trapeze for a short spell. Nice.
The album sounds perhaps more relaxed and less forced than the “we’re gonna make this sound modern” Fused, yet it is much more inspired than the Seventh Star opus which I found almost reactionary and a bit dull when it came out in the 80s. I know, it is loved by many.
PS: Tony invented the diminished fifth interval to all intents and purposes for pop music when he wrote Black Sabbath, but does that mean he has to somehow squeeze it into every little riff like he does on this album just to show what a demonic badass he is? 🤣 Satan will claim his soul as a lump sum royalty! 😈
October 17th, 2024 at 00:11The Iron Man and The Voice of Rock together on two stellar albums….what’s not to love!? This is Glenn Hughes at his finest – in full-on rock mode, perfectly complementing Tony Iommi’s riffage. These two records are some of both men’s best work. Highly, highly recommended listening!
October 17th, 2024 at 01:11The great DP family tree is the greatest of any band on earth. It’s very messy but the music speaks volume.
October 17th, 2024 at 06:30Peace ✌️
Good copy! Both are great albums and I’m glad good music still charts.
October 17th, 2024 at 08:24Yo,
Herr Uwe asked…
qt.”PS: Tony invented the diminished fifth interval to all intents and purposes for pop music when he wrote Black Sabbath, but does that mean he has to somehow squeeze it into every little riff like he does on this album just to show what a demonic badass he is “?…
***It’s a fantastic note to play, the bluesiest of the blues that you can sound…And as for the Satan remark, when you listen to all the lyric content of BS, you won’t find a more Christian oriented / themed band.
October 17th, 2024 at 22:44Lieber Gregster, I don’t believe in the existence of Satan nor of his former boss who kicked him out in ignorance of any grace periods. But should I be wrong one day – and I frequently am – I will happily sit down with either of them to have a chat, that will be interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrwIs10XvKA
October 18th, 2024 at 12:53@6…
LOL ! My limited understanding on these matters is that should you fail to do what you were meant to do this time around, you come back again to set-things-straight, as per agreement…
The “dark” at times themed lyrics of the early BS were essentially aimed to “wake people up” about the atrocities going-on in the world at the time, namely the Vietnam war…And to question good & evil, & how it’s portrayed in our world behind evil acts such as war, & folks hiding behind the “church” cleansing their souls, & the general hypocrisy of it all…The lyrics were good, thought provoking by questioning the establishments & their deeds…
That said, we had DP to humour us lyric wise ( generally ), & powerful instrumentalists & backing to entertain in a generally upbeat way most of the time…But even the Copenhagen show from 1972 has IG referencing… –
qt.”Lucifer, & all his friends, who are gathered around somewhere tonight”…
Adonai vasu !
October 19th, 2024 at 12:56Come back again? Now you‘re scaring me! What if I am reborn as a low caste Led Zep fan? That would be “cruel & unusual punishment”! “I swear there ain’t no heaven and I pray there ain’t no hell!” LAURA NYRO
I’m with you. Geezer Butler’s lyrics weren’t dumb and transcended Hammer Horror lurid satanism bollocks. They were mainly sociological/philosophical.
The lyrical change from Ozzabbath to Diobbath was a hard one for me to stomach. They dumbed down.
October 19th, 2024 at 17:45@ 8 – As usual Uwe cannot relate to something so he puts it down, Sabbath H&H lyrics. Open your minds eye Uwe, that is what it is there for ole son. Or to put it another way, look outside the box, you may be surprised at what you ‘see’. Cheers.
October 20th, 2024 at 01:19Guilty as charged, Sir, and proud of it! I cannot relate to Dio’s sword & sorcery lyrics at all, they are excruciatingly silly to me. Half the time I don’t even get what he is singing about, all these allegories sung to create an atmosphere, but not really tell a coherent story. Lost children of the sea climbing silver mountains to catch rainbows while ladies of the lake are watching the gates of Babylon to run with the wolf while nobody bleeds for the dancer … yeah, alright, whatever! 😂
Or can someone tell me what Man On The Silver Mountain is really about?
I didn’t even like this Lord Of The Rings, Excalibur and Game Of Thrones crap as a kid/teen, I don’t know why I should have to start now. When Rainbow Rising came out I wondered why Dio wasn’t singing about reality or at least a past that once actually existed.
And it’s not that I cannot appreciate folklore or mythology, I’m a sucker for instance for C&W songs that tell a real (or if not real, then at least a good) story – like Garth Brooks’ Lonesome Dove does so well:
https://youtu.be/TkX8tqi9iTw
I just prefer something like The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire or Peaky Blinders to a series involving animated dragons, much as I like reptiles, I’m sorry to say.
October 20th, 2024 at 23:08@10 Vot abaut Das Rheingold & Die Walküre? You don’t like zem?
October 21st, 2024 at 08:06Yo,
Herr Uwe wondered…
qt.” When Rainbow Rising came out I wondered why Dio wasn’t singing about reality or at least a past that once actually existed “.
***Escapism is your answer. Most people in the 1970’s that were attending concerts & buying records to listen to, were generally getting loaded with some type of stimulant to enhance the moment, to help forget about day-to-day life & its tragic dogma. Rainbow had to find an angle of some-sort, & a number of tunes over the 3 x DJD albums had a theme of escapism / fairy-tales & day-dreams. It’s not as though they were the only ones doing it. LZ, RUSH, Yes, Genesis, even the WHO were creating “in-situ” concepts & running with the themes to a greater or lesser degree. ( Dare I say Pink Floyd too ) ???…
Adonai vasu !
October 21st, 2024 at 11:43Lieber Georgivs, I hate Wagner! Pretentious to the max and hollow in all its fake grandeur. And German mythology never did much for me either, the Romans brought us culture and civilization and if they had stayed we would have all been better off.
Lieber Gregster, I get that. To the defense of Neil Peart, while I was never fond of his pushing the libertarian Ayn Rand agenda, a song like The Trees is at least ABOUT SOMETHING, albeit not exactly union-friendly. Rush often had a message. Not one to my liking, but a message it was:
“And the men who eat high-fiber
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the fart”
Yeah, I can get the whiff of that, Rush lyrics were a gas.
Blackmore’s flirtation with sword & sorcery in Rainbow was brief, already by LLRnR (the album) he was pressuring Ronnie to write about other topics (and Glover and Turner as lyricists would avoid Dio themes altogether). Of course, once he made music with his missus, old vices reared their dragon heads.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/39a751eba69fd1e22972495eb4d2e726/c655dd007aed55c9-60/s500x750/b3713a5689125c346b0d9293e3becdaa919f8f20.gifv
October 21st, 2024 at 17:16@13 Try zis. German mitology in Velsh rendition. It may reopen Wagner for you in a lightheaded vay. I showed zis to meine kinder:
October 21st, 2024 at 20:28https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IvpJcN8DcQI&pp=ygUWZGFzIHJoZWluZ29sZCBhbmltYXRlZA%3D%3D
Yo,
@13…
Indeed ! “The Lord of the Rings” has quite a profound effect on all those who take the time to READ the books…
It seems that RB chooses to live-that-life of Middle-Earth as best as possible, than write tunes about it, at least in the 1970’s. LZ, RUSH & others were more than happy to so however.
Possibly RUSH’s most understated album from the early years is “Caress of Steel”…This baby is a timeless master-work of gigantic proportions, at the least equalling “2112”, & containing near-on a side dedicated to the darkness of Mordor…
1970’s RUSH is pretty awesome.
Adonai vasu !
October 21st, 2024 at 23:26I know, I know, Mordor is supposed to represent the Eastern Bloc, the Orcs were all communists and so forth … Tolkien was a Cold War warrior.
To me, that fantasy stuff and rock music are not a natural match, last I heard, the Delta Bluesmen sang largely about love and sex, not Orcs, Sauron and Gandalf. And from my memory, the mentioning of Jazz, Blues and Rock in Lord of the Rings is scarce, but I’m willing to reread it if you can point me to some relevant parts I missed. 😜
October 23rd, 2024 at 20:00Yo,
@16…
The LotR influence is on how well it’s written & believable…The references to the East are non-judgemental, & simply compass-points used / needed to tell the story…
***The Russians were allies to the West remember during the time of its writing (1939-55), at least until the end of WW-II, when they were disgruntled by the US-of-A taking-on most of Germany’s scientists & other technologies…
Thus, your allegory really holds little water, though many make the same claim. And though J.R.R.Tolkien died in 1973, he acknowledged the coincidence, but denies all allegory to the purposeful intended use, as written in many of his biography’s…Yes, I have a few.
I’m sure that many Jazz musicians were influenced like countless others by the books, though there’s no need to sing about it all the time lol ! Jazz remember is a construct created to label a form of music that was pop-music before R&R came along…
This is why there’s also subtle hints of its presence in the music of DP, spanning their whole career.
Adonai vasu !
October 23rd, 2024 at 22:05Yo,
Our Uwe commented…
qt.”Tolkien was a Cold War warrior”…
*** He was actually an Army news reporter in both World Wars, & had lost all but one of his best friends growing-up by the time he was 21…
qt 2.”To me, that fantasy stuff and rock music are not a natural match, last I heard, the Delta Bluesmen sang largely about love and sex, not Orcs, Sauron and Gandalf. And from my memory, the mentioning of Jazz, Blues and Rock in Lord of the Rings is scarce, but I’m willing to reread it if you can point me to some relevant parts I missed”. 😜
***You won’t find much music within the books my friend, but you will find the inspiration created from reading through them catered many bands, some as listed above…Imo, his greatest work was “The Silmarillion”, published after his death in 1977 & edited by his son Christopher…Christopher actually was the proof-reader & aid to his Dad, & during WW-II, transcripts & editing plus suggestions were mailed back & forth between them…Even after the war, his son was stationed in SA for years, which is in part the reason for the delay in its 1955 publishing, & even that of which was only 1 volume comprising 2/6 books.
The awesomely understated band “Marillion” named themselves after this posthumous publication of J.R.R.Tolkien’s work, so one might say the music is there, depending on your perspectives…
Adonai vasu !
October 24th, 2024 at 11:35I guess all that fantasy folklore made an entrance into pop and rock by the late 60s via such English folk acts like Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Magna Carta, Fotheringay, Steeleye Span and Renaissance. They didn’t want to just sing about the subject matters of the Delta and Chicago Blues or the Wild West mythology of North America, so they adapted the mythology in their own backyard.
It probably comes as no surprise to you that I prefer Orwell and Steinbeck to Tolkien!
October 25th, 2024 at 00:14Yo,
LSD possibly had a lot to do with musical themes & lyrics…Even Jimi was singing about dragon-flies & carpet rides…And so were the Beatles…( the girl with kaleidoscope eyes )…
Adonai vasu !
October 26th, 2024 at 11:37@10, Uwe…
I found the SongMeanings website with the song lyrics, followed by a bunch of opinions over 3 pages. There’s actually a place called Silver Mountain in Colorado. Also, apparently a fully chromed motorbike, in biker slang at that time was called a “silver mountain”. Then again, it could be a song about cocaine use & dealing, the silver being the coke. There’s the possibility of religious connotations too, because Dio means God… The man on the mountain… Come down with fire, lift my spirit higher. It could be a mix of all those ideas, whatever… The Chariots of the Gods!. That was the mid 1970’s, when all that kind of nonsense was popular, perhaps the zeitgeist of the era. I think Dio just wrote some imaginative words that sounded “out there”, & that also fit the music. So if you want to, have a look through the following opinions & take your pick.
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/69711/
October 27th, 2024 at 04:55@ 21 – thanks for posting that link, a good read there from certain aficionados. Ronnie wrote good lyrics at times, he used his mind & looked outside. Cheers.
October 27th, 2024 at 21:18“That was the mid 1970’s, when all that kind of nonsense was popular, perhaps the zeitgeist of the era. I think Dio just wrote some imaginative words that sounded “out there”, & that also fit the music.”
Quite right, John!
I liked it better when his lyrical messages were clear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zABqvT9BP-Y
PS: Actually, like most of the Elf stuff, I find this song endearing.
I really liked Elf: Mickey Lee Soule’s piano playing was something else in an era of Hammond and synth sounds and the band forged its path between rock, pop and prog with undeniable charm, coupling American and Brit (Beatles!) influences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT7s_hJNFvY
Yes, the lyrics were mystical too, but not yet as relegated to just one field as with Rainbow.
October 27th, 2024 at 21:53Uwe, today I’d much rather have Gillan’s witty lyrics than Dio’s … but as a young Max of say 18 or 20 … Those songs seem to make too much sense but they’re all about feel. They turned depression into agression – but be it a positive one. When I had been drawn to the Bundeswehr I was totally lost there out in an area I hab never beent o before, in winter, in a room with 5 strangers, being yelled at every day and missing my girl that was at home and really sick … just to give you an idea – and guess who saved my ass? And while they are certainly not intellectual stuff I think there is more to Dio’s lyrics tham meets the eye sometimes. There are songs about abuse, the danger of technology, even politic if you like for example. Many of his songs you can read a lot into – but isn’t that what metaphores are all about? The Blues work much simular – even they are more about love and stuff.
Never tell a secret with your eyes
It’s the eyes that let you down
Tell a little truth with many lies
It’s the only way I found …
Living in a world of make believe You can hide behind what’s real
But wearing your emotions on your sleeve and they all know how you feel …
I think many people can relate to that – at least I could as a young man, knowing even than it was a bit obvious … but hey, there was the music too! And those songs with those words make Last in Line and Holy Diver too stand out albums, timeless classics and all time faves for me.
Never mind, Uwe, you are a rainbow in the dark!
October 28th, 2024 at 09:02Well, I admit that I do like Dio’s Egypt (The Chains Are On), Last In Line is actually my favorite Dio (the band) album.
But even as a teen I wasn’t so much drawn to escapist fantasy as to outright anarchist lyrics, low PC comments and double entendres!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFAMyoGS4jY
(No other band could be as stoned out of their heads and still perform like Dr Hook!)
I was notorious with both my classmates and the teachers for my nihilist sarcasm. And I’d prefer a film like Clockwork Orange to something like, say, Star Wars or Conan The Librarian.
And I would identify strongly with the lyrics of a band like Sparks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=k3aH7RtVSLI
“The lawns grow plush in the hinterlands
The perfect little setting for the one night stands.
The drapes are drawn and the lights are out
It’s the time to put in practice what you’ve dreamed about.
Well she can show you what you must do
To be more like people better than you.
Amateur hour goes on and on
When you turn pro you know
She’ll let you know
Amateur hour goes on and on
When you turn pro
You know she tells you so.
Girls grow tops to go topless in
While we sit and count the hairs that blossom from our chins.
Our voices change at a rapid pace
I could start a song a tenor and then end as bass.
So choose your partners everyone
If you hesitate the good ones are gone.
Amateur hour goes on and on
Dance, laugh, wine, dine and talk and sing
But those cannot replace what is the real thing
It’s a lot like playing the violin
You cannot start off and be Yehudi Menuhin.
So Amateur hour goes on and on”
Such a brilliant band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IVTSdF-YzI
to this day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyfIABixGDc
October 28th, 2024 at 14:51A good read indeed, Uwe. Thanks for sharing. Genau mein Humor, as we say in Germany. Have to admit that I never really checked out the Sparks, something about them made me dislike them instantly. Seems I missed out big time – at least lyric-wise.
Now I think you can have the best of both worlds. While I really dig the wit of the likes of Gillan, Ian Anderson or, say, Zappa I still have a soft spot for the more romantic side of things. Especially when it comes to music. Lots of Americana artists get listened to here for example. In Dio’s heroics there is no irony, it’s pure pathos. And there is a place for that. Even more with music as great as his.
I do like David Lynch movies or Monty Python or Wes Anderson – but sometimes it has to be a french feel good movie.
And as I mentioned before – the man really helped me get through some hard times when I was young.
October 29th, 2024 at 10:32