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Jun 10, 2013The influence of early Sabbath has become so omnipresent that it's come back to influence its very creators 40 years later, but the results are unexpectedly brilliant, apocalyptic, and essential for any die-hard metal fan.
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Jun 11, 2013There aren’t any future gems here on the order of “Paranoid” or the immortal “Iron Man” but these songs could have been album tracks on any of the band’s early recordings.
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Jul 3, 2013The music roils and rumbles, allowing the group's folk roots to peek through, but it only sometimes rages or roars.
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Jun 11, 2013The generic gloom of “Loner” is the only flat spot among the eight songs.
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Jun 10, 2013Wilk does an adequate job on these extended tracks, but it’s the vitality of Iommi on guitar and Butler on bass that impresses.... Butler’s lyrics find their perfect match in Osbourne. In these songs, the singer wrestles with demons--psychosis, self-abuse, existential dread--with which he’s had considerable personal experience. It makes 13 something a bit more credible than just a souvenir for a reunion tour.
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Jun 10, 2013Sabbath have produced a muscular, urgent sounding record that does no disservice whatsoever to those early metal masterpieces.
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Classic Rock MagazineJul 23, 2013No, 13 isn't as good as their first six albums--what is?--but it's a million times better than most of what followed. [Summer 2013, p.86]
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Jun 11, 2013Despite the volume, 13 is a return to form--if a somewhat obvious one--and an example of perseverance.
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Jun 7, 201313 does what you’d expect it to, no more, no less.
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Jun 3, 2013The result is surprisingly adventurous, considering the monochrome palette of Osbourne's latter-day solo work.... Still, Rubin makes too much here feel dry and disappointingly small.
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Jun 10, 2013Here, every riff is full of life, the chemistry popping out in the open spaces, Ozzy's melancholy once again finally, and fittingly, overtop the soundtrack of metallic joy and madness, the whole thing combining to create a perfect metal sound the way only the masters can.
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Kerrang!Jun 20, 2013In its eight track, Ozzy, Tony, and bassist Geezer Butler have managed to once again capture that special essence which makes them so magical. And it's bloody fantastic. [1 Jun 2013, p.52]
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Jun 10, 2013The good news is that 13 is an amalgam of everything you’d want from a new Black Sabbath album featuring three of the original members.
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Jun 11, 2013The spirit of early Sabbath permeates 13, which is a solid record for those with realistic expectations.
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Jun 10, 2013In the end, 13 isn't what every Sabbath die-hard dreamed it might be: a true pick-up-where-they-left-off comeback for the group's founding quartet. But the record does belong in the view of every metalhead--not just because such a seminal band still deserves obligatory props, but because, imperfections aside, the record embodies the kernel of the original Sabbath idea.
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Q MagazineJun 17, 2013They might be old, they might be poorly and they might be running scared from their wives, but on 13 Black Sabbath roll back the years and sound young again--and blacker than ever. [Jul 2013, p.102]
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Jun 27, 2013Rubin’s experiment has paid off handsomely, even though at times you’ll find yourself comparing the new songs to any number of familiar signature tunes from Sabbath’s catalogue.
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Jun 3, 201313 is steered by superproducer/superfan Rick Rubin, and it shows that, for all their innovations, Sabbath were a product of their era – at core, they're a blues-rooted prog-rock band, and 13 may surprise some people in its proto-metal traditionalism.
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Jun 13, 201313 is primarily a journey into familiar territory, one that yet again focuses on Black Sabbath's acumen for vintage heavy metal.
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Jun 7, 2013In expressing all of these [themes] without tumbling into absurdity, it helps to have a klaxon whine like Ozzy's delivering them, while Tony Iommi cranks out those trademark slow, molten-lead riffs that trundle through 13 like tank tracks.
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The WireJul 3, 2013This is perhaps the group's most straightforward release outside of their intermittent collaboration with late vocalist Ronnie James Dio. [Jul 2013, p.52]
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UncutJun 6, 2013Of course, Black Sabbath can't fully turn the clock back to the beginning--but they can still do a pretty good job of sounding like the beginning of the end. [Jul 2013, p.70]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 92 out of 100
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Mixed: 7 out of 100
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Negative: 1 out of 100
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Jun 11, 2013
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Jun 14, 2013
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Jun 23, 2013