Liste der Bands Heavy Metal Black Sabbath God Is Dead ?

Three years after The End of Heaven and Hell and a lot of bullshit later and then the unthinkable has happened. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Black Sabbath, the one true Black Sabbath - well, most of them (but hey, most of you think Black Sabbath is just Tony Iommi, so...) - are back and bringing their own titanic brand of heavy metal back with them.

Here it is, the forerunner of the much anticipated 13 album, the single "God is Dead?" It is both unlike anything these three have made and yet it is impossible not to draw connections between this and earlier work. Ozzy's vocals, while never perfect, are more in line with his high-pitched wails from his solo album Down to Earth, as opposed to his most recent work Scream. Geezer's thundering away like it's 1971 and Tony's guitar is back in E-flat, a la The Devil You Know, with riffs that hearken back to "The The End of the Southern Cross" and "Hole in the Sky" to name but a few. Brad Wilks, the skin-beater of Rage Against the Machine, steps up to the kit with beats that are both jazzy and metal at the same time.

So, what does this song have to offer? Crushing and slow riffs of doom, as usual, and Ozzy wailing away about whether or not the most hated deity of the Western World really is alive. Lyrically, Black Sabbath have always been on the fence when it came to spirituality, sometimes preaching for it, like "War Pigs", "Lord of this World" and "After Forever", and sometimes preaching against it, like "Under the Sun", "Who Are You?" and possibly "Megalomania". I think the best part of this song is during the fast, "Hole in the Sky"-esque bridge, where Ozzy forces the listener to answer the question:

"Do you believe a word what the Good Book said
Or is it just a holy fairy tale and God is dead?"

It's a nice long song for those of us who are missing 8+ minute songs. As for the mix? Well, I don't see what's wrong. Rick Rubin mixed the song in similar fashion to The Devil You Know, which he did not produce. Aside from a rather unimpressive guitar solo and Bill Ward's absence, there really isn't anything really wrong with this song. God may be dead to you, but Black Sabbath lives and this single is proof of it! Just a month and a half more and 13 shall come!