• AllMyVinyl #115
• Band: Tony Iommi & Glenn Hughes
• Album Title: Fused
• Release Date: 11 Jul 2005
• Date purchased: N/A
• Location purchased: Record Label
• Color of vinyl: translucent blue
• Number of discs: 2
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | My Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

It’s odd.  I adore this album.  I always have since the day it was released.  At the time it came out I was already involved with Tony Iommi helping out a bit with social media and websites and all that, so I was “all in” as you say.  Yet, I find myself struggling to find a writing point for this one.  The way I do these things is I set up the base structure in WordPress (links, basic facts, vinyl pictures), and then I write about them.  I first did that on 30 Jan, intending on doing the album that day, and then got stuck.  The problem I’m having is that I feel weird writing about this one given my connection to its release.  Then there’s the angle that it’s just so damn good, I just want to go “It’s Iommi’s Fused album – it’s fucking awesome – I mean what more do you need?”   My series has proven that I write more than that, even for lesser albums, or things I don’t care for.  But for this one?  I find it hard to find the words – which is really strange for me.

But the album is that fucking good.

It first came out in the summer of 2005, and it was an instant hit with fans.  I’ve rarely run into anyone that didn’t have something nice to say about this one – it seems nearly universally loved by Sabbath fans.  It POSSIBLY could be the  best solo album by any Sabbath member, IMO.  Yeah, yeah, I know the first two Ozzy albums are awesome and all that (they are – I’ve written about Blizzard & Diary elsewhere), but this Iommi album is a fucking rock from start to finish.  The original release was on CD and digital only.  There was no vinyl print in 2005.   But back then, the concept of “retailer exclusive” was a thing, and this album was hit by that.

Back in 2005, the standard album had 10 songs, and that’s what nearly most of us all got.  However, three bonus tracks were made available in a few places.  The first one was called “Let it Down Easy”, and was the track included on the Japanese CD (a common practice then).  The second track was called “The Innocence”, and was an exclusive to iTunes in the UK.  The third and final one was called “Slip Away”, and was an exclusive to the Rhapsody music service – that was at the time a service by the folks who did RealAudio back in the day (an early audio format that competed with mp3) – they’re still around today, but I digress.   In 2005, unless you were a Napster hound, you generally didn’t hear the bonus tracks.   I did manage to track them down back then, and burnt them all to a CD I played in my car a lot that I called “Fused Complete”.   One thing about my Fused Complete CD is that I reworked the order of the tracks.  I didn’t just stick the three bonus tracks on the end – I made “I Go Insane” track 13 on my CD because it’s such a killer end of album song it deserved to go last (much in the same way Kiss of Death does off of Forbidden, or the title Track for Diary of a Madman is or something along those lines).

One thing that always bugged me about this album release cycle was that there was supposed to be a tour.  As I mentioned earlier, Geezer had a solo album out at the same time, and there was a tour to happen in the fall of 2005 which would have been Iommi’s solo band touring with Geezer’s solo band.  That would have been fucking epic.  However, it never happened, and we got more Black Sabbath shows in the fall.  The solo band tour idea was scrapped, and unless Glenn has done some at his solo gigs, I don’t think anything from this album has ever been performed live (or Geezer’s Ohmwork for that matter).   I still wish that one happened.

As for the Fused album itself, it’s of course the third album in the series with Iommi & Glenn Hughes (the others being Seventh Star & ‘The 1996 DEP Sessions‘).  Glenn plays bass and sings, where Tony plays guitar.  The rest of the band here is Kenny Aronoff on drums, and Bob Marlette on Keyboards (and some bass).  Marlette also is credited thusly..  “Produced, engineered, & mixed by Bob Marlette”.  Our old friend Mike Exeter is also credited with “additional engineering”, although who did what EXACTLY is unknown to me.

What I’m listening to today is the UK vinyl.  As I write this on on 2 Feb 2025, the vinyl version still hasn’t been released in the US.  It was supposed to be back in the fall, but at the last minute it was discovered someone made a mistake in the interior printing of the art.  A pic of Tony & Glenn got flipped and it made Iommi look like a right handed guitar player.  In what I have to imagine was an incident that got someone reprimanded or even fired, Rhino had to recall all the US copies of Fused on vinyl so they could be corrected and re-issued.  That had to cost some coin.   I have seen reports that a few of the misprints did make it out to the public, but I never saw one with my own eyes.

Now that I got the intro out of the way, I have to get to the songs, and honestly, I’m back to where I was when I started.  I find myself at a loss to write about the individual tracks.  Even when I listen to them, I’m struggling to write about them, because they’re so good.  I will write about them, but perhaps not as many words as some others in this series.

Dopamine – Right out of the gate, the album hits you with a heavy ass riff and sets the mood for the album instantly.  I wouldn’t quite call it a “statement song”, but it’s definitely a great way to launch the album.   It’s the only song that got a video produced for it.  Not for the 05 original, but for the 2024 re-release.  The original release had no promo videos for it that I can recall.   The beat is solid – find myself jamming at my chair while the solo is playing, something that doesn’t usually happen.

Wasted Again – A song with a slower, sludgier sound to it.  That early Sabbath sound is in effect here to my ears.  This song has some great vocal work by Glenn Hughes – one I would have loved to have seen live, as I know Glenn would have expanded on this.  He tends to “scream more” live on songs that have even some mild levels of “Hughes screaming”, and this has a lot of it on the studio version.

Saviour of the Real – Love the riff that runs through this.  Great heavy ass crunch to this guitar sound.  The song is only 4:23, but it feels way longer than that.  One of my favorites from the album.  Great solo – it’s also mixed with some vocal work by Glenn too.  It’s not just one or the other – nice sound.

Resolution Song – Saviour leads directly into this one, so much so that I didn’t realize the song had changed at first – ha.  None of the songs on this album are bad, but this is one I probably like the least.   The slower vibe of this one doesn’t do it for me.  I also am not fan of the chorus which includes vocal stuff by Glenn singing “ahh-yee-ahhh” a lot.  It doesn’t work for me.

Grace –  One interesting thing about this song.  The guitar bit from 2:52 to 3:07 sounds EXTREMELY similar to the opening few notes from the song Anno Mundi. In no way do I think it’s an identical copy, but it sounds very similar to my ears.  This is another song where I glom on to the chorus – unlike Resolution where it detracted for me, this one does the opposite. The riff that goes through this early part isn’t the most unique Iommi riff out there, but the chorus carries the song for me. After it comes out of that part, the song’s tune changes a lot – a completely different guitar sound takes over at 3:07 and is totally different to the earlier part of the song, I would have preferred a full song of THAT.  The last minute takes us back to the early riff again.  This song is interesting in that regard that it has a few different sounds.

Here, I extracted the guitar bits from both Grace and Anno Mundi and stuck ’em back to back (Grace is first).  Tell me if this doesn’t sound similar:

Deep Inside a Shell – This one starts with Iommi more restrained, and Glenn’s vocals are more the focus.  It doesn’t stay there, but it’s a more quieter sound as a whole.  That gets returned to a few times during the song, but it’s got some of the traditional Iommi sound to it.  The guitar solo in the middle is also a quiet sounding one – less about melting your face off with riffage vs some nice guitar noodling.   I like the differences here.

What You’re Living For – I do like the faster guitar sound that kicks in about halfway through the song.  Before that, I was prepared to write that this song wasn’t working for me, but I very much like the faster sound.  The slower one does come back – so it’s a definite time change thing.  That’s usually something that’s right up my alley, but I didn’t care for it here.  I would have preferred the fast one go through the entire song.  The guitar solo section is quite good – but then it’s Iommi – it’s hard for those not to be good.

Face Your Fear – This one has a different take to Glenn’s vocals.  They sound like they have a slight echo sound to them they didn’t have for the rest of the album.  It’s not a huge thing here, it’s subtle (at least at the start anyway).  This is another one that I always find myself going “Let’s get to ‘I Go Insane'”.  That’s a fault of mine, I admit.

The Spell – I mentioned before there was a track that sounded like early 70’s Sabbath sludge.  Forget that.  THIS is the main piece of sludge from this album.  Starts off with something that would fit on Volume 4 super easy, I think.  It doesn’t rise above that too much in tone, and it doesn’t have to.  Good song.  The chorus catchy to me.  “Catchy” and “sludge” don’t seem to go together generally, but this works.  In fact, this time around I enjoyed this one more than I have in the past as I would usually go “just give me Go Insane please”. :)

I Go Insane –  Finally get to the last song of the OG album.  It’s a total masterpiece of a song.  At 9:17 – you’d think it would go on too long, but no.  Perfection.  In fact today when I listened to this album was the first time I’d heard the track in a couple of years, and while it’s always been filed in my head as an awesome track, listening today reminded me of that.   I absolutely adore the tonal change at 4:22 when the song – which already had power – kicked into a higher gear and just kicks the shit out of anyone who is listening to it (and there’s another jump at 5:20 as well).  There’s a great bass sound at 3:40 right before the change which I loved too.  Of all the songs on the album, it’s the one I knew I’d find the hardest to write about because it’s so good. It defies the mere mortal words used to describe it. Perfection.

I almost don’t want to cover the bonus tracks due to the way the regular album ends, but I will.  :)

Slip Away – This starts off with a great sounding guitar riff.  It’s on the slower side, but not at sludge level.  Once we get to the chorus, Glenn’s vocals take a notch up.  I like the majority of this song, but the bit in the background when Glenn sings “Slip Away” with his own foreground vocals sounds odd.  Overall the song is fine, I just don’t care for the background vocals here.   Iommi’s guitar work is more in the background than usual on this album it seems like.  It’s less in your face.

Let it Down Easy – Easily my favorite of the three bonus tracks.  So much so I would have swapped it out with something on the main album (Face Your Fear or Resolution Song?).  It’s better (for me) than nearly everything on the base album except for a couple of tracks.  As I’ve stated many times, it’s my favorite kind of track. 3 or 4 min long fast paced song.  Love everything about this song.  The riff Iommi plays through it repeats a lot, but it’s a great one, so it doesn’t matter.   From the first time I heard this 20 years ago until now, I get into it every time.  Love that the main song riff continues to play while Iommi is soloing – great sound.  I also love Glenn’s vocals here – despite singing the title song a LOT here, it all works for me.  Also ends well, unlike some songs that go for the boring fadeout or the harsh cut with no real defined ending.  Great song – if “Insane” didn’t exist, I would say this would be a great album closer.

The Innocence – The final bonus track.  The main guitar sound here sounds like something else I’ve heard – even on this album.  This one has Glenn singing softer in places.  Most of this album is Glenn just throwing the volume out there from front to back, but this one has a bit more vocal range in his voice.  At around three minutes in, the guitar sound changes to a different sound that I very much like over what came before it.  It’s not the first song on this album I said that about.  I would have preferred more of the sound from 3:00 till end than we got from 00:00 until 3 mins.  It’s not even a full on time change, but it’s a different vibe.  Overall, it’s probably my least fav of the bonus tracks, however.

As you can see, I ended up writing about it, but it was a real struggle to find the groove to get started.  I still think it would have worked with “Just go fucking listen to it – you’ll get it”.

This album turns 20 in about five months.  Iommi & Hughes are both still with us.  They’re long LONG LONG overdue for a fourth album in the series.  Come on lads – while we’re all still here – please?

Iommi Hughes IV.  NOW.