Black Sabbath: Symptom Of The Universe by Mick Wall (BOOK REVIEW)

sabbathbookMick Wall has written about Black Sabbath before, in his own memoir Paranoid, so you would think that at least 50% of his new book about the band would be rehashed stories and scraping of the barrel bottom belly-of-the-beast legends. With both Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne having written their own memoirs – Iron Man and I Am Ozzy, respectively – is there even enough secrets and folk tales left to warrant another book about the Birmingham, England, band that forged a new, dark, harder rock sound.

The answer is yes and no. If you love the band or simply curious to read about the shenanigans of all four original members – Osbourne, Iommi, bass player Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward – and their various other mates who have worn the Black Sabbath patch on their jacket, then it’s a good place to start to get a whole picture. Wall, after all, worked within the band as a publicist and has since interviewed them on numerous occasions while working as a music journalist. He knows these men and can give insight into personality traits and happenings that others may not be able to. But a lot is skimmed over, especially in regards to childhoods, in order to bring the main components together: the eco system of a band in constant upheaval and turmoil.

Well-known fact #1 is that the drugs and alcohol ran rampant through the band. Wall brings those escapades, which Ozzy stampeded right into your face while Iommi kept his hidden in black-curtained hotel rooms, onto the 368 pages like a simple glass of wine. He doesn’t blow them out of proportion with exclamation marked hyperness. Butler got paranoid, Ward went wild, Ozzy went substance abused insane – all told with a cool head and an even-keeled sense of storytelling.

Probably the most interesting capsules in Wall’s new book are those involving Ward and Iommi, two ends of the same drug-addled stick. Whereas Ward wallows in his addictive nature with love and hate, Iommi seems to hermit away, locking out the world with a blank stare. Wall recalls meeting Ward, him with “dark panda eyes, hair untamed, full druggy beard, beer belly hanging over his ungainly, studded rock star belt.” It is a sad image he conjures up of a drummer who stood almost equal to John Bonham in both playing and partying. Iommi seems to be the complete opposite.

Ozzy never really lost his high school intimidating fear of Iommi’s stronger personality and Wall brings this out frequently to help build a portrait of the relationship between the singer and his guitar player and the atmosphere it created within. “One has to be sensitive to his mood,” former bass player Neil Murray is quoted as saying about Iommi. “If you start to aggravate him and don’t notice the signs of him getting agitated, suddenly he’ll explode in anger and pin you up against the wall.”

Although the author walks you through the days of Ronnie James Dio, Ray Gillen, Tony Martin, Don Arden, Cozy Powell and Glenn Hughes, it is still Iommi and Ward’s stories that reverberate the strongest, even over Ozzy and Butler’s. If you want the full story, Black Sabbath: Symptom Of The Universe is a good place to start, to set you on your path for what really happened in the band that gave rock “Paranoid,” “War Pigs” and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.” Just be sure to fill out your quest with both Iommi and Osbourne’s tomes and somehow, someway the full portrait may get painted.

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