Black Sabbath Album: “Sabbath Stones”

The Sabbath Stones is an awesome collection of Sabbath songs with singer Tony Martin, though TV Crimes is sung by Ronnie James Dio. I've always have enjoyed Martin's expressive singing style. The music is heavy as you would expect from Sabbath yet the Martin era does come across in a different way. The CD is very long. Just a bit over 80 minutes. "Loser Gets It All" is an outtake found only on the Japanese version of "Forbidden". My only complaint is the four songs from "Tyr" ("The Sabbath Stones", "The Battle Of Tyr", Odin's Court", and "Valhalla") could easily have been edited as one long piece. Instead when listening to them on random play they sound rather strangely edited. However, on the CD "Tyr" the same thing can be said. I highly recommend this Black Sabbath collection. I listen to mine quite often.

Yes, there was life for Sabbath after Ozzy...but it focused on the nuclear bomb that was lodged in Dio's throat. No other combo of music and lyrics has ever been as crystallized and as strong--I venture to say, even greater than the latter part of Dio's Rainbow days. IMO there are 3 greatest definitive early metal albums--Black Sabbath, Rainbow Rising, and Heaven and Hell. Do we see a pattern here. For me Dio is *the* iconic singer, from his graceful hand movements to his from-the-balls delivery. Dudes, if I could sing, I'd want to sound like Dio. 'Nuff said. This album only gets 4 stars cause it's not all about Dio.

This compilation of songs covers the best Sabbath era IMO. Tony Martin is much better singer than Ozzy and the songs are better written than Sabbath's early material. The sound is different than the early years also. Sabbath moved from a kind of "classic doom metal" sound to the classic heavy metal sound of the 80's, much in the vein of Iron maiden or Judas Prest. So if you like those bands or classic heavy metal, don't miss this compilation which features great singers (all way much better than Ozzy in my view) such as Tony Martin, Ronnie James Dio, Glenn Hughes and Ian Gillan.