Black Sabbath - Tyr (1990)

Back in 1970 Black Sabbath gave the world a new genre of music, which would later on be called heavy metal, oddly enough, but not surprising Black Sabbath is also one of the originators of the Viking metal genre too. Yep, that's right, back in 1990 vocalist Tony Martin was writing lyrics about the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology, whom is commonly known as Tyr.

'Tyr' the third of the five albums recorded with Tony Martin at the vocal position is truly an under appreciated classic as well as one of Tony's finest moments at the mic, but also quite honestly one of the best albums Black Sabbath has done.

During the 80's Sabbath flirted with the power metal genre with albums like, 'Born Again,' 'Seventh Star' and 'The Eternal Idol,' but they really didn't get it right until 1989's, 'Headless Cross.' Headless Cross was a fair release, some great songs like the title track or 'Nightwing,' but again something was missing. Finally on Tyr it all came together.

It may be additionally important to point out here that the only surviving member of the original Sabbath line-up at this albums time of release was guitarist Tony Iommi, while bass duties were handled by Neil Murray, drums by Cozy Powell and keyboards by Geoff Nichols.

Anyway, power metal is suppose to sound powerful, but rarely does this truly happen, in fact the vocals are almost always corny and the music generally fruity. Fortunately this is one of those cases where almost all of the songs actually are what power metal intended to be, powerful! Several of these songs are total fist pumping anthems with incredible guitar work courtesy of riff master Tony Iommi while Tony Martin's vocals are absolutely colossal sing-a-long mightily charged vocals. Cozy's drumming is also quite competent and Neil's bass is there for sure, but it's Geoff's keyboard work that is also really important on this release since synth is often used in the background and also the forefront of these great songs.

The album opens with, 'Anno Mundi,' which is a slower, but totally epic metal song, which leads into the albums fastest and quite catchy song, 'The Law Maker.' 'Heaven in Black' is also incredibly catchy and, well, sorry to use this word again, but fuck it, it's damn powerful and fun sounding. There's even a cool little ambient/neo classical piece called, 'The Battle of Tyr,' which leads into, 'Odin's Court' brilliantly. The albums only real blunder is the 8th song, 'Feels good to me,' which is a slow corny 80's ballad, but on the plus side there is a killer solo in it.

As I already said this is an under appreciated classic, one of Sabbath's best albums, a gem of the power metal genre and even an early entry in the Viking metal genre. All at once Tyr is heroic, dynamic and captivating and is worth every bit of your time. Check it out!