Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Black Sabbath, BMG 2021.
Throughout the last couple of years BMG has been releasing special editions of Black Sabbath’s back catalogue and on 11th June they were up to Sabbath’s sixth album Sabotage.
These deluxe editions are something special for fans.
This one includes the original re-mastered album along with a complete live recording of one of the shows on their 1975 tour in support of the album.
To commemorate this release BMG has partnered with Bewilderbox Ltd, creators of the award-winning Escape Room Adventures and specialists in IP based puzzle gaming, to produce an interactive on-line environment for Sabbath fans called the Sabotage: Escape Room.
You can play it at: blacksabbathband.lnk.to/escaperoomPR
In the game you enter the mysterious mirror world of Black Sabbath’s Sabotage in search of recovering a highly prized copy of the Super Deluxe edition of the album.
The game takes between five and 15 minutes to complete, depending on skill level.
The Super Deluxe version of the album is available as a four CD set and a four LP set that also includes a bonus 7” for the single Am I Going Insane? (radio) with Hole In The Sky on the flip -side.
The artwork for the single replicates the rare Japanese release.
On release in 1975 Sabotage reached number seven in the UK and 28 in the USA charts and it received favourable reviews from the music press however, it was the first of their albums since the release of the hugely successful Paranoid not to achieve platinum status in America.
At the time AllMusic’s Greg Prato stated that “The magical chemistry that made such (earlier) albums as Paranoid and Vol 4 so special was beginning to disintegrate.”
Despite this criticism Rolling Stone still ranked Sabotage number 32 of their 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time.
As the years have passed Sabotage has undergone a re-evaluation and is now considered the last of the band’s ‘legendary first six albums’.
