UK UNCUT Magazine MAY 2018: Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne Ultimate Music Guide

When Black Sabbath closed the final performance from their The End Tour, in Birmingham on February 4 last year, you could be forgiven for wondering whether that was really the last we’d hear of Ozzy Osbourne and his musical cohorts. After all, here was a band who had come back from the brink several times in the past – Ozzy himself had embarked on a solo farewell jaunt in 1992.

But if the peal of a familiar church bell has definitely tolled the end of Black Sabbath – and those monolithic riffs are no more – then at least it is possible to celebrate the masters of metal in all their infinite glory in our latest Ultimate Music Guide.

As you can imagine, it features classic interviews from the archives of Melody Maker and NME complemented by extensive new reviews of every Sabbath album, every Ozzy solo album, miscellanies and more.

“’We’re all four together, like brothers’

“Not everyone’s first thought, of course, but the origin story of Black Sabbath is essentially a romantic one. Whereas the beginnings of heavy contemporaries like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple speak of professionalism, of scouting the scene for strong players and likely collaborators, those of Black Sabbath feel endearingly haphazard.

As you will discover as you read through the extraordinary archive interviews and affectionate new critical writing which makes up this new Ultimate Music Guide, the story of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne is a rags to riches yarn. Namely how four pot smokers from an unpromising part of Birmingham turned their obsessions – heavy music; not working; smoking pot – into one of the most influential, charismatic and commercially successful bands of the late 20th century.