• AllMyVinyl #124
• Band: Black Sabbath
• Album Title: Headless Cross
• Release Date: 17 Apr 1989
• Date purchased: N/A
• Location purchased: From record label
• Color of vinyl: clear
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | My Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

“Listen for the feet as they pound the land to the tune of thunder!”

This album showed the resurrection of Black Sabbath in the late 80’s.  I got into them in the early 80’s right before all the lineup changes started.  When I first got into ’em Mob Rules was current.  From that point forward, the band put out three (studio) albums and the albums and tours had a slew of people run through the band.  After Mob Rules and before HC, we had four different drummers, five bassists,  four vocalists (do we count Keel/Donato/Fenholt? If so – seven?!?) before finally settling on this lineup for the Headless Cross album.  Which itself added yet another drummer and bass to the count above.  Sabbath in the mid to late 80’s was anything BUT stable.  But at this time, Tony was determined to introduce some credibility and stability into the situation, so he sought out his old mate Cozy Powell to join the band.  Cozy was approached in the early 80’s, but turned it down, but this time Cozy joined and the two of them (together with Tony Martin, a holdover from the prior album/tour cycle) produced this album.

It came out on a new record label – the first time Sabbath had a new record label since their original contract in 1969 with Warner/Vertigo.  They were on a world wide deal with I.R.S. Records.   In the end, that turned out to be not so bad a deal, but at the start here it seemed like a good new, shiny thing.  I saw some promotion (video, MTV appearances by Powell/Iommi, magazine ads, etc) that I hadn’t seen in the couple of albums before that (Seventh Star, Eternal Idol), so I thought it was a good idea.

So that spring I headed out to some record store (I forget which at this point), and picked up Headless Cross on CD.  I was all about CD’s at this point having moved past vinyl and to a larger extent cassettes as well.   Somewhere along the line, I picked up a copy of it on cassette tape as well, but I don’t recall where that came from.  It’s entirely possible I bought them both at the same time, but I have no memory of that.   This was also the era of the long box for CD – I sadly saved NONE of them.  100% of them just got discarded the moment I opened the CD.  I wish I had saved some of them.  But vinyl never happened then.  I know HC was available on vinyl back then, but I never bought it.   Jump forward a few decades until the early 2020’s when it was finally announced that the Tony Martin IRS albums were going to get their first ever re-release.   They were in high demand, as they’d been out of print since originally issued back in ’89.  On 31 May 2024, the “Anno Domini 1989-1995” box set was released.  It contained Headless Cross, Tyr, Cross Purposes, & Forbidden).   It was however a limited edition box, so it was discontinued fairly quickly.   However, that wasn’t the end of it.  Late in 2024, the individual albums was printed on their own, and that’s what I’m listening to today.  The individual re-release of Headless Cross.  I chose that one over the one in the box set, because the standalone version is a clear vinyl as you can see with the attached picture.  The one that is in the box set is black vinyl.  As far as I know, the standalones looked that way to make it more of a carrot to purchase?  At least that’s my guess.  Either way it’s a nice looking piece of vinyl, and the one that’s getting played today.

Full disclosure: Due to my running of the Black Sabbath site I have for nearly 30 years now, it affords me a luxury in that I have all this stuff sent to me from the label.  I mean I don’t need to buy five copies of Headless Cross in the same year (Box set LP, Box set LP second copy, box set CD, LP standalone, CD Standalone) – haha.

The album’s lineup is Tony Martin on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar, Cozy Powell on drums, Laurence Cottle on bass, and Geoff Nicholls on keys.  Cottle was a session man, and never intended to be a full member of the band.  Even into this album the instability raised its head a bit.  There was some talk about Geezer Butler returning to the fold, but he went and joined Ozzy’s band instead.  That left them needing a bassist for the recording – enter Cottle.  Given he was never intended to tour or anything, it then facilitated a more permanent bassist, so that’s where Neil Murray came from, although Murray doesn’t actually play on the album as such.   The album also has an appearance by Queen guitarist Brian May, but I’ll get to him later.

NOTE: I’ve seen some talk that the EI touring bassist (Jo Burt) was involved in the earliest sessions for the HC album. Spotted that on Wikipedia, and their “source” is Tony Iommi’s book.  I’ve been following Sabbath for decades now, and like to think I know nearly all of the small fiddly bits of the band’s story.  This was NEW to me, so I decided to look into it.  Given their source was Iommi’s autobiography (they specifically call out the chapter “Headless and Happy”), I broke it out and had a read.  I read the entire chapters on Eternal Idol and Headless Cross, and nowhere does it mention Burt being involved then.  The credited chapter does not have Burt’s name mentioned – ANYWHERE.  The book does mention the 1988 charity gig (the lone live show).  Burt was gone THEN, as bass for that gig was handled by Geoff Nicholls, not Jo Burt.  This is another example I think of people making shit up and editing Wikipedia with their slant on things, which isn’t always what ACTUALLY happened (hi Mitch!).  BTW, this is the first time I had to break out a physical book to verify some point in my vinyl series here.  Thanks Wikipedia.

Anyway, enough of this.  I’m 1,000 words in, and I haven’t written about any songs yet.

The Gates of Hell – This is a 1:06 long instrumental piece of noodling by Geoff Nicholls.  This is nothing new to Black Sabbath, they’ve done this kind of thing over the last few studio albums before this (Scarlet Pimpernel, Sphinx, Stonehenge, The Dark, E5150)…  But what’s different here is this one leads off the album.  That is new.  I can only suspect that it was done intentionally to set the tone.  The “devil” part of the Sabbath mystique was ramped up this album, so putting one called ‘The Gates of Hell” first was probably designed to be a mood setter out of the gate, but I personally tend to skip it when I listen to the album and actually start with the next song.  There’s nothing wrong with this as a long intro to the next song, but on its own it’s a bit of “who cares?”  It was used as part of the taped intro for much of the Tony Martin era in live shows as well.

Headless Cross – As long term readers of my series know, I love a song with a good drum intro.  We get one here, which I think was designed to put out “Hey – Cozy Powell is here!”.  It’s not the most intense drum intro he’s ever done (hello Stargazer), but it’s powerful, simple and it works. After Cozy’s drum into, it leads into one of the more powerful Iommi riffs there ever has been – that opening salvo from Tony just rocks it – and the song was sealed as a top overall Sabbath song forever in the first 30 seconds.   This has everything.  Great guitar work, a good drum beat, some soaring vocals by Tony Martin.   It’s actually hard for me to write about this song, as it’s just that fucking good.  It has some nice keyboard accents too – Geoff gets mixed in well, and isn’t just something in the back you don’t pay attention to.  You can hear all five guys who play on this song quite well.  Good mix too I suppose, otherwise that wouldn’t have been called out.   It’s also 6:29, the second longest on the album, but man it doesn’t feel like it.  In fact when it ended I played it a second time, as I wasn’t ready to lose that vibe.  Still just as strong as it was back in the day.

The video for this was also interesting.  It was filmed apparently at night when it was bloody cold out – you can’t really see that, but stories I’ve read about the shoot say it was cold out.  But what’s notable about the video for me is that it is the only appearance of Laurence Cottle for anything to do with the album.  I’ve never seen a band lineup photo with Cottle, he did no press for the album, so this is it for him.  He’s in the video, and at no point does the video footage focus on him, but he’s there.  If you’re reading this on my blog, here’s the closest thing to a closeup of Laurence Cottle in Black Sabbath that we’ve ever been privy to.  :)

Devil & Daughter – Song three and the third song that mentions devil or hell in the title or lyrics.  I’m detecting a theme.  As a piece of music, this has a nice steady riff and a good beat.  It also starts off with a drum fill – it’s only like a second long, but it is the first thing out of the gate for this track.  “She’s hot, evil, and ready to take any man”.  The lyrics are a bit over the top IMO, but musically it’s a good track.  I do like that Tony M does some of the high note singing (screaming?) he did on the song Headless Cross as well.  There’s also a cool “flutter” sound to Iommi’s guitar as we lead into the solo part of the song.  Oddly when this album was new, I tended to overlook this song, because I’d go right to the next one.  But in recent times I’ve enjoyed the track more than I did in the past.  Lyrics are still a bit on the OTT side, though.  Good overlooked track in the Sabbath catalog.

When Death Calls – Four for four on the devil thing.  The longest song on the album at 6:56, but it has a bit of that old Sabbath feel, the slow burn track that would fit in well on earlier albums.  The opening of the track features (I think) the only part of that album that solely focuses on Cottle.  This was a song that I liked a lot when it was new, but I overplayed it and burnt out.  However, my enjoyment of the song was restored when I saw Sabbath on the Forbidden tour in 1995.  They played this song live there, and I REALLY love what Neil Murray did with the track there.  It’s full of time changes, and different feels.  There’s a lot of great individual parts in here for sure.  It has a nice galloping guitar sound before we get to the solo section I quite like.  Once we do get to the solo, we get one of the most unique parts in any Black Sabbath song ever.  The first guitar solo on this song isn’t played by Tony Iommi – it’s played by Brian May of Queen.  The only time on ANY Sabbath song that the guitar isn’t played by Mr. Iommi.  I’m also pretty sure that’s Geoff  singing with Tony saying the actual lyrics “When Death Calls”.

“For I believe Satan lives in the souls of the dying” and “You can’t die until Satan says you die”.  <– Yeah, Tony M is really pushing the “Satan” bit on this album.  Bit too much?

Kill in the Spirit World – This is a slower paced song.  By far is this NOT “slow”, but in terms of the overall tone of the song, it’s not as fast as most of the stuff on the first side of the album (we’ve hit Side 2 for non vinyl folks here).  It does have my favorite thing – the time change.  It’s here in spades.  However, the bit in the chorus with the lines “there’s a been a kill in the spirit world” is a bit TOO etherial of a sound for my tastes.  Once we get to 1:50 – it tonally changes completely.  It goes into a place that I didn’t care for.  It’s not my favorite song because of that.  I get what they were going for – there’s a definite mood they’re trying to reach, but it doesn’t gel for me personally.  Towards the end of the song, I feel it repeats itself a bit too much.  At 5:11, they probably could have shaved a minute off.  Ah well.  They’re not ALL gonna be bangers. :)   It did break the Satan thing – no satan or hell reference directly here.

Call of the Wild – My favorite factoid of this song is that it was originally called “Hero”, but it was decided to change to he decidedly non Sabbath sounding “Call of the Wild” because Ozzy had a song on his then most recent album called “Hero”.  It too like Spirit World has a slower sound to the overall track – it’s not super fast in what it does.  I do like the time changes here, it has a nice sound that plays behind the part where Martin sing “You’re the one they turn to when Hell screams” (the Hell/Satan thing is back!)  I do like the sound of the word “Hero” being sung in the chorus – shame it wasn’t called that, “Call of the Wild” just doesn’t feel like a Sabbath-y title at all.  But yeah, I liked this song.

Black Moon – Here’s a repeat track.  If you read my Eternal Idol review, I mentioned this track before.  That’s because for the first time, Sabbath re-records itself.  This exact same song appeared on the Eternal Idol – but not on the main album – it was a B-Side on that album.  The basic song structure is the same.  Lyrics are the same.  Obviously some parts feel different as the rhythm section is different (then it was Bob Daisley & Eric Singer – now it’s Laurence Cottle & Cozy Powell).  So it’s not like it’s radically different, but given it’s not the first go around with the song, it was IMO tightened up a bit.  It’s a good song – nothing that makes me want to jump up and down and go “FUCK YEAH!” but it isn’t always needed.  This version feels far more polished – the guitar sound is a bit clearer than it was on the Eternal Idol version.  4:06 and a relatively fast song?  Yeah, that’s my jam.  Also the devil thing is back yet again, I mean come on Mr. Martin..  “An angel of hell is rising, heaven’s no friend of mine”.  Love the music, but some of these lyrics are a bit much.

Nightwing – Another of the “slow burn” type of tracks and one that has quite a few time changes.  It’s got a great vocal delivery by Tony Martin.  The slower part is a nice mix of Iommi & Cottle creating an atmosphere.  Powell doesn’t do anything until a minute in when the full band kicks in and we get a sound more familiar.  But then it goes back to the slow part – the back and forth appeals to me.  It’s probably my favorite vocal performance by Martin on the album.  Really great track – one of those longer (6:36) tracks that has a bunch of different feels to it.  Iommi’s solo is pretty on point – the whole band is really.  Another of those tracks I’ve written about where you just have to listen to it to get it – my words are insufficient.  A song that I think is uniquely Martin.  While any of the other Sabbath vocalists could probably sing it (well, maybe not Oz), it’s definitely a Martin strength here.

It’s also one of the lone tracks that doesn’t have the over the top “devil” lyrics, not unless you want to read into it – not mentioned directly.  :)

Cloak & Dagger – The album ends with Nightwing, but there’s also Cloak & Dagger – the song that appears as a B-Side to a single release form this album and was also on a rather rare picture disc version of Headless Cross.  It is also available on the standard CD re-release of Headless Cross in 2024 (either in the Anno Domini set or the standalone).  It is NOT on the vinyl versions released in 2024.  It sounds like a B-Side.  I do really love Tony’s riff here – it’s good stuff.  Martin’s vocals have a slightly different take here, not entirely sure why.  I do have to say I like the way Martin’s vocal delivery flows here – going from word to word it’s a nice sound.  Don’t listen to the lyrics, just the way the words are delivered (if that makes sense).  I get the feeling if this were on the main album from the start, it might have turned out a little differently.  As it stands, it’s a good song just not top of the heap.  Martin’s vocals are the strong point here for me.  That’s also borne out in the way the song ends – with the peak of what Martin is doing with his voice ending the song.

Thus ends the article on Headless Cross.  When this was brand new, I was all over this album front to back – but a handful of the songs on here haven’t held up as well after a few decades – that should be evident in the wall of text I wrote above.  But overall, it’s still a banger of an album, and one I’m glad got a sonic upgrade in 2024 – it needed it.  When it was re-release it got a remaster, and the one fault I had with the original 1989 version was that it was underpowered.  When I listened to my existing copy on current equipment and compared it even to other Sabbath albums around this time it felt like it was being played through a pillow.  Eternal Idol didn’t sound like that, Tyr & Dehumanizer didn’t sound like that, but Headless Cross always felt a little flat to me.  This 2024 remastering definitely takes care of that.   The title track is still killer, I also really love when Death Calls & Nightwing – plus a few others.

It’s a great album with some awesome tunes, and some lyrics that are bit too over the top for my personal tastes.  Still, there were a couple of songs here I repeated when I finished listening to them.

Get Headless!

My notes for the band count in-between Mob Rules and Headless Cross, wanted to make sure I got everyone…

Mob Rules Drums (Appice)

Ward – Born Again album
Bevan – Born again tour
Singer – Seventh Star album/tour, Eternal Idol album
Chimes – Eternal Idol tour
Powell – Headless Cross album

Mob Rules Bass (Butler)

Butler – Born Again album/tour
Copley – Seventh Star album
Spitz – Seventh Star album/tour
Daisley – Eternal Idol album
Burt – Eternal Idol tour (also some Spitz too)
Cottle – Headless Cross album

Mob Rules Vocals (Dio)

Gillan – Born Again album/tour
Hughes – Seventh Star album/tour
Gillen – Seventh star tour, Eternal Idol album
Martin – Eternal Idol album / tour & Headless Cross album
Keel/Donato/Fenholt – Do we count them?

Here’s the bit from Wikipedia mentioning Burt from the Wikipedia page on the off chance it disappears.