Still Iron as Hell: Review of Sabbath's new album 13

It seems like all odds were against our favorite riff slinging Brits from making their new album 13. But despite all the heavenly efforts to stop them, Black Sabbath's satanic powers overcame all and the result is one hell of an album. 

If you've been following the development of 13 you already know that it is the first album featuring Ozzy, Tony and Geezer together in 35 years. You also know that original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward did not join them. This was a great blow to be sure. But producing the album was the legendary Rick Rubin who made a quick fix adding drummer Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame. Brad's playing on the album is powerful, loud and loose. He is a perfect fit for the seasoned pro riffs of Iommi. 


Guitarist Tony  Iommi's experience with the album was a matter of life or death. He was diagnosed with Lymphoma  at the beginning of the writing period of the album.He began treatment immediately and had the guys fly out to England to continue writing and playing whenever he had the strength. But he fought through the disease and is now recovering but amazingly recorded this album in the middle of it all. Sabbath's upcoming world tour includes breaks for Iommi to get further treatment to keep his cancer at bay. This month's Guitar World magazine shares an amazing article all about Tony's battle and victory with the disease and the band's comeback

Now let's get down to the nitty gritty. This album rocks! Rubin wanted to capture the raw, live room feel of the band's most successful release, Paranoid. They played in the room together and had a minimum amount of overdubs. Most of Tony's solos are live, which must have been terribly stressful for him. The result however is glorious. The band sounds powerful, and electrifying. The Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer combo is just too classic to resist. 

I wasn't a huge fan of the single off the album " God is Dead?" but it is growing on me. This is definitely one of the those albums that at first listen you think "yah that was pretty good" but then the more you listen to it the more you realize how fucking awesome it is. That being said there are several key tracks that stand out from the rest of the album as being the jewels of the bunch. First is "Zeitgeist", a clear "Planet Caravan" throwback fully equip with acoustic guitar, bongos and flanger laden Ozzy vocals. The shortest and softest song on the album it also has some of Iommi's most soulful and expressive lead work. 
Next is "Damaged Soul". Although 13 is laden with great riffs "Damaged Soul" might be the most memorable sludge fueled hypnotic romp of them all. This song also has like 5 ripping Iommi live solos that will light your socks ablaze.
Finally the most thrashing and hardest rocking tune on the whole album is actually one of the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of 13, "Methademic". This song is the fastest tempo on the album and has the most complex guitar textures which is nice change from all the powerchords. (Not that there is anything wrong with powerchords). It is also my favorite performance from Ozzy on 13. 

Overall this is wonderful reemergence of the mighty Black Sabbath. It may not contain riffs as memorable and classic as the tunes from Paranoid, but it rocks twice as hard and demonstrates a matured and battle scared  Sabbath that is back and will take no prisoners. 

4/5 stars

key tracks: Zeitgeist
                 Damaged Soul
                 Methademic

-Sam of BBT

So about that wacky name......

The band  name. Unquestionably the hardest part about having a band is choosing the god-forsaken name. Yes this name is very important; it says a lot about you and your music before anyone ever hears or sees you.  My question is , why can't the band just listen the guitarist's idea and accept that he is the most artistically inclined and will choose the best name?

But in all seriousness every member should agree and feel confident stepping on stage representing the idea of name-X. Boy is it a bitch to find that one name though....

The name and idea that we finally agreed to present our rockdom as was Black Bear Tribe, but you can call us BBT for short.

Everytime I tell someone this the response is usually along the lines of

 "Black Bear Tribe? Where did that weird and wild name come from?!"


Well I'm going to tell you all now,so you can stop asking.

It started, as most great ideas of mine do, with The Hobbit. I knew that this band was going to produce rock of epic proportions. The only reasonable name would have to be something mythological, like Wolfmother. Most cultural mythological names of events or characters were already taken. Others were too esoteric or hard to pronounce.So I looked to my spiritual guide, Tolkien.  It  couldn't be too predictable though. It had to be a great character that wasn't obvious but was recognizable and bad-ass. Finally I decided on "Beorn" The mountain man protector of the woods who turns into a giant freakin black bear at night. Now if you're thinking "but that character wasn't in the Hobbit movie" dont worry he's coming in the next one. I loved the name, decided on it and had made the first full length album cover before the group even had its first jam.
I was happy as a clam with myself until a week before our first show when out of the blue my illusions came crashing down around me.

I received an email from Jason with a subject heading titled "so about the name..." I knew  I was doomed.
He thought the name was too nerdy and not evocative of what we were trying to do musically.
I guess
Surely, I thought, the Jeff and Trevor don't feel this way.  Short story, they did.

Now here we were, a great band, a  week out from our NYC and world debut, nameless. The unspeakable horror.

Many sleepless nights. Questioning the bands existence all together. Too many bad names thrown onto the table only to be eviscerated in a matter of seconds...

Finally a glimmer of hope. The idea of Beorn simplified into the Black Bear.

Many more name of loathing: Black Bear Tea Party, Black Bear Bonanza, Black Bear Band...I needn't go on...

I thought we might as well give up on the Black Bear idea all together

But Jason insisted we stick to it because he had been seeing it in his dreams.Who was I to argue with a man's dreams? Not only that but he was thinking that he wanted to try to think of a way to incorporate his Cherokee heritage.

Jason is 50% Cherokee. Cool I know. Even cooler than that is that  his grandmother was a Shaman. She was born with an extra layer of skin over her face that they have to pull off at birth and it means she has the gift of foresight. So for obvious reasons Jason was interpreting his dreams with special mystic significance.

After he told me that I knew instantly what we needed to be called. TRIBE was the missing ingredient.
A group , a family, a band of brothers with the intent of conjuring the energy of the Earth and her creatures to a higher state of being for the greater good of the world!

And thus the name Black Bear Tribe was born

now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Excelsior,

Sam

Black Bear Tribe: rocks rebirth

I was tired of it. the ironic low energy indie pop folk electronica overproduced undertalented overrated underground soulfull-soulless drible. Lets be real. Really real at the core. When you were 14, what got you you through the day? Not the music that "youve probably never heard of" not the stuff that "is really experimental" not whats " really going back to the roots of America folk" not the music that is best listened to with arms crossed and a low fat soy no sugar extra whip half caf extra shot latte . I'm talkin about the music that was the soundtrack to your first kiss, that got you stoked up before every football game, that you had blasting rolling in to the school parking lot at 7 am, that made you want to be a rockstar, live for something bigger than yourself, that you could never listen to standing still, that you partied to, that you got laid to... that was the music I wanted so desperately to make every since I started playing the guitar 10 years ago after I saw "School of Rock" for the first time. I'm talking about Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Rush, Pink Floyd,  Queen, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Metallica, Van Halen, Guns & Roses....I dare you, any of you to tell me you honest to god don't love at least one of these bands. They hit you below the belt, drag you through the dirt and then lift you back up  to heights you never thought imaginable. Call it Classic Rock, if you want or just Rock & Roll, Stoner Rock or just plain Rock I'll take it.

Now finally, thank Christ, after 10 long years, I have the band to make that music with! And they called themselves :
                                                 Black Bear Tribe

I happened upon the group by chance it seems. Maybe it was fate. Maybe the work of the devil. But whatever weird machination that works upon us it was; here is how it happened:

I, that is, Sam, actor and musician, found myself graduated from my undergraduate theater  program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. What was a young fresh faced actor to do but make the move to the Big Apple, beat the heat under the bright lights, and make a name for myself. Of course this whole adventure would have been impossible without my folks and little lady Linda fronting the rent for our Manhattan janitor closet for the first three months. Once footing in the city was secured and readiness to pounce into the theatrical menagerie of NY was acquired, a kink was throw into the works that threw my whole plan off kilter. From the ashes of a Brooklyn folk group came Jason Kraft. My good college buddy Brittany had played Uke in the group and thought Jason and I should meet up and jam seeing as we were both rock-blues musicians looking for comrades. "Sure" i thought "I'll entertain this folk guy and jam" but i didnt really think much would come of it. We met on a brisk October afternoon at Madison Square park. Jason sporting black wayfarers and an untamed mane of curls, was a man of unending energizer-bunny like exuberance. I liked him, but the music was what we came here for. We exchanged a few folk tunes we'd written with lukewarm response. His music was folk for sure but his voice sounded like it came straight out of  the 1978  heavy metal scene. Then I figured I should cut the nonsense and show him the kinds of rock tunes I really wanted to play. I unleashed a few of my riffs and to my shock, Jason, exclaimed "Did you write that? " "yeah" I said "Fuck yah, thats the kinda stuff I wanna do!" he said. After another half hour of realizing all of our shared influences and favorite music, it was decided. We were gonna make a goddamn rock and roll band!

The internet is a wonderful place. It is also a misleading temptress and dangerous wasteland of spare time. It had been for some time for me in my search for a bassist and drummer. I had been looking for musicians before i even met Jason but now I really had to up my game if we were gonna get a group on its feet any time soon. Somehow I stumbled across both a bassist and drummer at the same time.

Jeff and Trevor were old college buddies who had played together in various bands for 4 years before we met them. Their synergy with each other was obvious from the first second the of the first jam Jason and I had with them. John Paul Jones and John Bonham, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, Jeff Hechler and Trevor Ezell. Done. Blamo!

I had sent the guys a rough demo of my song "Black Arrow" about the defeat of Smaug the dragon from the Hobbit. It was a pretty staightforward Zep inspired tune, but if everyone could dig it and pull it off well it would be a great test to see if we could work together. Additionally we agreed to jam out on Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Lovin' You" , my personal favorite song of all time. We worked "Black Arrow" without a hitch. It sounded great right from the get-go and things were movin and groovin. But when Jason hit the wailing notes of "Said I've been cryin" in SIBLY and the whole band came triumphantly crashing back into the chorus, I think all four of us knew that something magic was happening in the room, and in that moment the band that was to be Black Bear Tribe was born.

How we came up with the name is a strange tale for the next blog post.

Now here we are. Four young pups with our eye on one goal: Bringing back honest raw gut-wrenching ball breaking face melting bra unstrapping engine revving stereo pumping heart racing soul seething Rock

you on board?

Join the tribe


Excelsior,

Sam of BBT


http://blackbeartribe.bandcamp.com/