Headless Cross by Black Sabbath

Headless Cross, Black Sabbath's fourteenth studio album, came out in April 1989 as their first for I.R.S., after Warner Bros. and Vertigo had both shown the band the door over the poor sales of The Eternal Idol. The band spent 1988 regrouping and bringing in new blood, and for the first time since 1982 he produced the record himself, working hand in hand with his new drummer, Cozy Powell.

It's Tony Martin's second album at the mic, with Neil Murray on bass and Geoff Nicholls on keyboards, and it goes straight for the dark: satanism, the occult, death, all sung with Martin's soaring bellow over Powell's thunderous, cavernous drums and Iommi's grinding riffs. Critics raved, and it climbed to number 31 in the UK and number 115 in the US, both better than its predecessor managed. It was reissued in 2024 as part of the Anno Domini 1989–1995 box of the Martin years.

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