Born Again by Black Sabbath

Born Again, Black Sabbath's 11th studio album, came out on Vertigo in 1983, and on paper it looked like a heavyweight title fight. With Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice gone, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler called in Ian Gillan, lately of Deep Purple, to sing, and welcomed Bill Ward back behind the drums. The band produced it themselves, with Geoff Nicholls on keyboards.

It sounds like what it is, two sets of hard rock habits colliding at full volume: Iommi's riffs as thick and murky as ever, Gillan screaming over the top as if he's trying to be heard from the next building, "Trashed" barreling along at full tilt. The critics were split, but the buyers weren't; it went to 4 in the UK and cracked the US top 40. It turned out to be a one-off: the only Sabbath album with Gillan, Ward's last, and Butler's last for nine years. In 2021 Iommi said the long-lost master tapes had finally turned up.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.