Black Sabbath - God is Dead? Impressions

As an added bonus of being forced to listen to the radio, I also got the chance to listen to Black Sabbath's new song God is Dead?. Yes, I am in fact implying that I wouldn't have listened to it otherwise. There's just something about musicians reuniting after doing nothing for so many years for the sole purpose of making money that's just off-putting. Here are my impressions of the (long awaited?) track.

It sounds like ass.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. I had heard snippets of this song occasionally while changing through radio stations. These experiences went something like this: "What the hell is this?" "Is that Ozzy?" "Meh" and then I changed the station. It wasn't until I happened to hear one station's broadcasters mention that the new Black Sabbath song was up next that I thought I should give it a listen. Even if I didn't like it, I could still blog about it at least. So I took my hand off the dial and listened through God is Dead?. Here are my impressions.

It sounds like ass.

Mmm, delicious mushroom cloud pasta.

I have so many gripes with this song it's almost hard to decide where to start. First off, why is there a question mark in the title? It's a very mysterious song, posing many questions and then failing to answer them. Is god dead? Was this song just made to make money? What is a metal song doing on the radio? Why is it so bad? This is what runs through your mind while the same riff repeats over and over. I have the same main problem with this song as I do with most pop songs in that nothing happens. Up until the song actually picks up around the end, it gives the feeling that it's all building up to something yet consistently failing to actually deliver that thing. It's just boring, for lack of a better word. Ozzy's vocals don't help.

I can't really understand most of what he's saying, but it sounds like the song is about a young reader of Nietzsche pondering life's burning questions. In this world of sinners and blasphemies, has god abandoned us? Did he actually exist in the first place? Oh no, here I go with the questions again. Damn you Black Sabbath!

The face of metal, ladies and gentlemen.

It's pretty obvious that this whole reuniting thing is just for the money or else Ozzy wouldn't have been a part of it. These guys did create the whole heavy metal thing, and I respect them for that, but there comes a time when you have to pass on the torch to the next generation. Especially if you have nothing worth making music about. Like I talked about in my previous post on the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal, there are already younger bands stepping in and playing in the classic metal style while the bands they've taken inspiration from are still pumping out music. What a strange world we live in. Though I'm sure there are plenty of fans who grew up listening to Black Sabbath that are more than thrilled that the band is putting out another album. What do I know?

So as it turns out, God is Dead? is not a great song. I'm just now realizing that I probably heard the shortened radio version, but there's no way in hell I'm going to check out a 9 minute version of this song. It's not worth it. I'll go back to listening to music made by bands who formed yesterday now.

-Zombie Viking