Black Sabbath announce details of long-awaited Tony Martin era box set and The Eternal Idol is nowhere to be seen
The new set will contain remastered versions of Headless Cross, Tyr and Cross Purposes, plus a new Tony Iommi mix of Forbidden
Black Sabbath have announced details of the long-awaited box set celebrating Tony Martin’s double stint as their singer. Martin joined the band in 1987 and recorded three albums with the band – The Eternal Idol, Headless Cross and Tyr – before Ronnie James Dio returned for 1992’s Dehumanizer. Martin then rejoined Tony Iommi & Co. for a second bite at the Black Sabbath cherry, recording Cross Purposes in 1994 and Forbidden the following year.
Black Sabbath: Anno Domini 1989-1995 doesn’t include The Eternal Idol, presumably due to licensing issues (it came out on Vertigo, while I.R.S. released the others). The other four albums have been remastered, and Forbidden, which was originally produced by Body Count’s Ice-T, is the beneficiary of a new mix from Tony Iommi.
“I was never happy with the guitar sound and Cozy [Powell, drummer] was definitely never happy with the drum sound,” says Iommi. “So, I thought it would be nice to do it for him in a way. I just felt that, without changing any of the songs, there was an opportunity to go back and bring out some of the sounds and make it more what people would expect Sabbath to sound like.”
The collection has been a long time coming. As long ago as 2015 Iommi was talking about remixing Forbidden, while he revealed that the set had been held up by “paperwork and legal stuff” in a video message posted early this year.
“It’s unfortunate that over the years Tony Martin has got buried in all this Ozzy and Dio stuff and everything,” Iommi said in 2021. “There will be a period now where we’ll be able to release the box set with the Tony Martin albums with some good outtakes as well. I’ve already mixed [it] here at home, so that’s all ready to go, but we have to wait until the time is right. We can’t put all these things out together – it would cause confusion.”
The outtakes in question are nowhere to be found in the new set, but there are three bonus tracks included in the CD version: Cloak & Dagger was originally the b-side of the Headless Cross single in 1989, while What’s The Use and Loser Gets It All were originally released as bonus tracks with the Japanese editions of Cross Purposes and Forbidden.
Black Sabbath: Anno Domini 1989-1995 will be released as 4CD and 4LP sets on May 31, and includes photos, artwork and liner notes from archivist Hugh Gilmour, a Headless Cross poster, and a replica concert programme from the Headless Cross tour. Full tracklist below.
Leave a Reply