• AllMyVinyl #32
• Band: Geezer Butler
• Album Title: Black Science
• Release Date: 1 Jul 1997 (vinyl 30 Oct 2020)
• Date purchased: N/A
• Location purchased: Label comp
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

The second of three “solo” albums by Geezer Butler is today’s album.  That’s Black Science.  This is my favorite of his three solo albums.  All three of them were generally harder edged than the material in Black Sabbath (which seems odd, but here we are).  But this one is more middle of the pack, with the next one being the hardest of all.  The band has a change from the first album.  That one had a different singer. The singer now is Clark Brown (replacing Burton C Bell).  For me that never made a ton of difference.  The album still has the same vibe as Plastic Planet, but perhaps not as raw as that album’s sound had.

In terms of where I got my copy from… Back in the day in 97 I got it on CD when new.  What I can’t remember at that point is whether I got it from a record label or I bought it. My Sabbath site was just two years old then, and I didn’t have all the connections I do now.  It’s lost to time whether I paid my own money for this. However, I do remember it was definitely on CD.  No vinyl in 97.  In fact the album was never released on vinyl originally.  It didn’t come out on vinyl until all three Geezer Butler albums were re-released in 2020.  That’s what I’m playing today – the 2020 re-release.  All three of them were originally marketed with slightly different band names – the first was “G//Z/R”, this one was “Geezer”, and the third was “GZR”.  All three are now sold as “Geezer Butler” from this point onward.  It did require slight art changes as the old branding was baked into the artwork for all three.

This is as I said my favorite of the three albums.  There’s nothing that’s a skip here.  I love all the tracks – obviously some more than others.  Saying this might sound like a cheat, but when I sit to listen to the album it goes from front to back, I don’t skip around or stop.  There’s some smoking riffs by Pedro Howse on here, and of course Geezer on bass.  The drummer almost never gets talked about but I know who he is – it’s Deen Castronovo who is probably more well known for playing with Journey.

Despite saying this, there are a few songs I wanted to point out for a reason or two.  First off is Northern Wisdom.  This is the outlier musically on the album.  While nothing on any of the Geezer albums could be considered a “ballad”, this is the slowest song on the album.  It’s a totally different vibe than anything else.  Given it’s sandwiched between two harder songs on the album it really sticks out – but in a good way.  No bloody clue what the lyrics are about, but it’s got a great sound, both in the music and the lyrical delivery – I love this track a lot – wish it got more attention.

Then we go back to hard – but this one is just silly – “Unspeakable Elvis”.  I remember back in the day when I first got connected to Geezer writing him and saying “you really don’t like Elvis, do you?”  The lyrics are (to me) just goofy as hell.  The song has some nice time changes too, which I always enjoy.  But the “Oh Elvis, do you love me – oh evil Elvis Presley.”  hahaha.  Great tune, though.

Justified’s vocals work quite well for me – I love the harmonics of it here.  I also love Xodiak a lot.  It’s a fairly simple song insofar as the musical construction goes, but It’s got a chugging sound that runs through it that works well for me.

But the one I wanted to say the most about is “Among the Cybermen”. Now if you’ve spent any time following me, you know I’m a bit of a Doctor Who nutter, but the thing is so is Geezer – but he did something I couldn’t – he saw Doctor Who new in the 1960’s – all those lost black and white episodes. Anyway, when this came out, I thought this HAD to be about Doctor Who so I reached out and asked him about it. I’ve told this story before on my Black Sabbath site, but It’s good enough to be told here again.  In short, I emailed him and asked if the song was about Doctor Who. Turns out it was, as this is what he wrote back with..

“yes, the lyrics were originally about the death of Dr. Who. The original chorus was “Dr. Who lies dead among the Cybermen”, about the final battle of Dr. Who, but was supposed to be symbolic of the end of childhood. I changed it because I thought it sounded a bit silly. Most of the album is about growing up in the era of Sixties television, and its influence on me.”

The Doctor Who connection to this doesn’t end there.  Jump forward to 2017, and the incumbent Doctor Who then was Peter Capaldi.  As Capaldi himself was a fan of the show in the 60’s he talked producers into bringing back the original 1966 incarnation of the Cybermen.  In the big battle at the end of the episode (titled “The Doctor Falls“) we get a visual representation of Geezer’s 1997 lyrics saying “Doctor Who lies dead among the Cybermen”.  I had a real life moment of that famous Leonardo DiCaprio meme where he points at the television – On FIRST WATCH I instantly connected Geezer’s song to the events in ACTUAL Doctor Who.  The big cherry on the top of all this to me as that episode itself aired EXACTLY twenty years to the day of the release of the Black Science album.  I adore this connection – even if it’s something my fan obsessed brain wedged into real life events.

Bringing this back to the music – as I said before, this is a damn solid album and easily my favorite of the three Geezer “solo” albums.  For me personally the album is pretty darned cool because I have relationships with both Geezer himself as well as his nephew and guitarist Pedro Howse. I know that sounds like a bit of a brag, but they’re really nice blokes.  Even went to visit Pedro in hospital when he was sick some years back.  Good bloke.  Love listening to his work.  Wish we would have gotten a fourth GZR album, but Geezer’s pretty darned retired at this point.

If you like hard rock, and ESPECIALLY Black Sabbath but don’t know this album, you owe it to yourself to get it.  There’s some great tunes here, very solid album and worth your time to give your ears a pleasant hour listening to Black Science.  An album that’s somewhat forgotten in fandom, but one I’ll never stop championing.

There were no conceptual music videos produced for this album, but when the albums were re-released in 2020, there was a “visualizer” video produced for the song Beach Skeleton from this album.  This song was only on the Japanese CD as a bonus track, and was fairly unknown to most fans.  I’ve included that video below.  There’s also a couple of my other favorite tracks here too (audio only).  The album was also available in a box set that came out called “Manipulations of the Mind“.  That was not released on vinyl, but CD only.  It has a few bonus tracks and a fourth disc of live tracks and demos too.  It’s worth your time as well.