After the Sabbath: The Disintegration (1976–78) | Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die!

Technical Ecstasy came out in 1976, during a time when tensions between Ozzy and the rest of the band were reaching a breaking point. It ended with his not-so-final departure after the recording sessions. Never Say Die! was released in 1978, after Ozzy returned to the band – but only briefly.

What confuses me most when listening to these two albums is how airy, light, and pop-oriented they are. More than anything else Sabbath ever released. You could feel the lack of focus coming from a band on the edge of implosion, but the vibe throughout is oddly cheerful, almost pleasant. Some songs even come with a kind of friendly campfire charm, sounding like the blueprint for ’80s arena rock in the Mötley Crüe mold – tracks like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor”, “Gypsy”, and “Hard Road” come to mind.

Still, I wouldn’t say these two albums are complete disasters. Compared to what came before, yes, they’re a drop in quality. But as rock albums on their own, they’re fine. They just fail to reach the level of bands who were circling in the same orbit – Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, for example. Up until 1976, critics didn’t like Sabbath because they were too abrasive, too strange, too far from the mainstream. After that, they didn’t like them because the music just wasn’t very good.

If I separate these two from the rest of the Sabbath discography, what’s left is a pair of decent hard rock albums that sound like B-list versions of everything else being made at the time. Nothing really stands out. Not the riffs, not Iommi’s guitar work, not the rhythm section. Ozzy just sounds like another bluesy rock singer, and not one of the more exciting ones. For me, these are hardly Sabbath albums. Regardless of experimentation, this isn’t the dark, weird rock they were known for. What we have here is two slabs of average late ’70s hard rock, with an awkward attempt at progressive flair that mostly turns into flashy nonsense. “Johnny Blade” and “Breakout” are the worst offenders. These albums have no edge and no atmosphere.

Even the covers were off. Both looked like something even Pink Floyd would have rejected. Technical Ecstasy had two chrome robots going up and down on what looked like an escalator. Never Say Die! featured two pilots, or something. Honestly, I have no idea. I gave up trying.

It’s hard for me to pull any unforgettable songs out of these two albums, and that’s probably because there aren’t any. They just passed the time. For me, and probably for the band too. From Technical Ecstasy I liked “You Can’t Change Me”, which at least had some grit, and “Dirty Women”, the closer, which has a good melody and a shadowy mood that still connects to whatever trace of Sabbath might have been left (and would have totally worked as Witchfinder General track, mind you!). From Never Say Die! I kept “Junior’s Eyes”, with its overblown bass and drama, and the title track, which has a bit of a Zeppelin edge.

Two more songs stick with me from that period. “It’s Alright”, which sounds like a Care Bears-era Beatles song, and “Swinging the Chain”, which closes Never Say Die! and sounds like a heavier version of Cream. I remember both because of Bill Ward, the drummer, who handled vocals on those tracks. I gave those songs credit that I might not have if they were just more Ozzy tracks.

Funny thing is, these two albums always felt like one long introduction to Ozzy’s solo career. And that about sums up how I feel about it. Aside from giving the world Randy Rhoads (rest in peace) and Zakk Wylde (long may he live), that career never did anything for me.

In 1979, Ozzy left the band for good and went solo. Everyone expected a full breakdown, but Black Sabbath didn’t fall apart. In 1980, they came back strong. With a new vocalist – Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Rainbow and Elf – they released Heaven and Hell, the start of a new era, one of many the band would go through. Heaven and Hell is a great album. It pulled Sabbath up from the mess of the last two records, maybe more. But without Ozzy, and with Dio’s over-the-top theatrical vocals (which were, and still are, great), the Sabbath we knew was gone. Whatever made Black Sabbath Black Sabbath in the first place had been overwritten. However, it was definitely not forgotten.

*