June 2025 Feature Release - The Guardians Edition

Another month flies by, which means it's time to nominate a new feature release for The Guardians & this time I'm going to blow some dust off an old & reliable friend of mine in Black Sabbath's "Tyr" from 1990.

As much as it would come as quite the surprise for the teenage-myself, who used to gravitate strongly towards the Ozzy-led material, it is this record - featuring some personal career-level highlights ("Anno Mundi", "Valhalla", "The Sabbath Stones") - that I tend to reach for most often nowadays (followed by "Mob Rules" & "Vol. 4"). I think that coming up with such enjoyable music 15 (!) albums in, really is the best testament to the level of Birmingham legends' greatness. Curious to hear what is your opinion on this one, as well as what is your favourite release from the Tony Martin era. Happy listening!

https://metal.academy/releases/15

Tyr is one of those Sabbath albums that's a bit hard to objectively talk about. Because on one hand, you have a massive group of people who consider any Black Sabbath album that doesn't involve Ozzy as something that the contributors to should kill themselves for; on the other, there's some overcompensation, viewing the Tony Martin albums as misunderstood masterpieces. As you can tell by the comparison I'm making, I'm more towards the latter than the former. 
It's sort of hard to find reason to genuinely hate this album unless you happen to hate big, bombastic sounds circa the late '80s. Iommi and friends treat this attempt at Norse-inspired metal with more gravitas than Manowar. Cozy Powell, who I've always heard filling other, bigger shoes, fills the air with a suitably thundering backing track. On an album generally leaning more towards the power/trad spectrum of the genre, Powell's more restrained, rockish hand does something to make it feel more like Sabbath.
Martin feels like he does a lot here that takes him out of Dio's shadow. He's front and center whenever he sings, but unlike Dio, there are times when he wisely has his voice blend in more with the overall texture of the music. Not in a muddy, but rather a pleasing way. One melody among many, each easily distinguished should you chose to.
I feel like the one big problem this album has is that it doesn't really leave a big impact afterwards. Outside of Odin's Court/Valhalla, none of the songs feel like something I would listen to outside of the context of this album. It also should have ended the album rather than being placed just before one/two songs. (depending on which version you have) That's nothing against those two songs, just that if you have an epic about Valhalla, it should either begin or end the album, any other way and it feels like it's an afterthought.
To repeat my opening statement. Tyr is a victim reality not conforming to expectations people have of Black Sabbath. It's not the best Black Sabbath album, but that's some very stiff competition. It's a fun little album that doesn't deserve to be demonized for not sounding like something else.

4/5

Here's my old review:

Unlike many people, I found some enjoyment in all of the 80's Sabbath albums. The Dio ones were clearly of the higher quality however each of the subsequent albums featured some great tracks & were well worth a few listens. It's a shame that they were generally held back by the inclusion of a few weaker songs as well. Their first 90's album "Tyr" was much the same. It's a mixed bag really. There are some really solid & anthemic heavy metal tunes here like opener "Anno Mundi (The Vision)", the fist-pumping "Jerusalem" & the epic "Valhalla". But then we also have a few tracks that don't really hit the mark at all like "Heaven In Black", "Feels Good To Me" & "The Law Maker". Strangely the album highlight for me is probably the seductive acoustic number "Odin's Court" which flows straight into "Valhalla" in what is the clear climax of the album. All faults considered there's certainly still enough quality to make "Tyr" a worthy purchase for heavy metal fans but it's a little frustrating that the band have yet again failed to put together a full album of high grade material. I think their previous album "Headless Cross" was probably a touch more consistent than this one but there's not much in it. Another decent Black Sabbath record that pulls up just short of where I'd like it to be.

3.5/5

Black Sabbath, with Ozzy as frontman, birthed and popularised metal for so many of us old metalheads and Dio helped to resurrect the tottering giants from the terminal decline into which their drug-ravaged delusions had pitched them, delivering a couple of indisputable all-time metal classics in the process. So, come on people, revisionism can only go so far and to consider the Tony Martin era with anything like the same degree of respect as the Ozzy and Dio eras is disingenuous at best. But, that said, it is what it is and these albums still have the world's finest riff master plying his trade and no amount of awful 80s-style over-production can disguise that fact. On the odd occasion when I do listen to albums from this Sabbath era, I do my best to strip away the production in my mind, so I'm not hearing something akin to awful AOR shite like Journey or Foreigner, but getting down to the pure heart of the record and that is Iommi's impeccable ability to write riffs. To be fair, none of this is Tony Martin's fault and I have nothing against the guy per se and, in truth, he is a gifted singer who doesn't sound all that different to Dio as a quick listen to "The Law Maker" will attest - shut your eyes and it could be the diminutive one himself throwing horns left and right!

But, I will never believe that layered keyboards and harmonised backing vocals have any place on a Sabbath record and on a track like Jerusalem they are a bridge too far, especially when coupled with one of the weakest riffs Iommi has ever written, then it is a big ask for me to get too heavily behind it. The best tracks here are the ones that are recognisably continuations from previous band iterations, "The Sabbath Stones", "Anno Mundi" and "Valhalla" would all have sat comfortably on Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules, if not for the production equivalent of 1980's big hair and shoulder pads.

So, in summation, for me this is an album with a fistful of decent tracks, alongside a couple of duffers, dragged down by a production sound that, whilst beefing up the guitar tone, throws the drums way too much to the fore in a way that has become decidedly dated. Overuse of layered keyboards and harmonised backing vocals irritate me at the best of times, but on a Black Sabbath album this is totally indefensible to me. I can't hate this, because underneath it all the riffs reign supreme, but I will never love it either.

3/5