I know that a lot of people say that Black Sabbath without Ozzy is not Black Sabbath, and although I am somewhat inclined to agree, I'd say that Dio always did a decent job as a vocalist, and I'd say that this particular album is probably the best of the Dio era of Black Sabbath, also one of the first albums with Dio as I recall of course. As always with albums from this age there are some ballad stuff and that I can always do without, but I can disregard that and just look at the killer songs here, like "The Sign Of The Southern Cross" and "Mob Rules". Maybe the reason why I worship this album so much is that it was one of the first albums I ever owned, and much like the other couple of albums that I got a hold of back then, impressed me greatly with the sheer power of it, something that commercial music just didn't have, and thus set me on my course to becoming a metal head, and if nothing else I can always love this album for that, but even disregarding that it is a fine album, even if it is without Ozzy.

© 2000 sharund