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Nov 4, 20225 min read

Black Sabbath - Mob Rules (1981)

FROM THE CRYPTS - CELEBRATING PAST ALBUM RELEASES in the HISTORY of HARD ROCK & HEAVY METAL…



On November 4, 1981, Black Sabbath released their tenth full-length studio album Mob Rules via Vertigo Records in the UK and Warner Bros. Records in the US.


Following Heaven and Hell, it was the second album to feature lead singer Ronnie James Dio and the first with drummer Vinny Appice. Neither musician would appear on a Black Sabbath studio album again until the 1992 album Dehumanizer. Mob Rules was produced and engineered by Martin Birch. The album was rereleased as an expanded edition in 2010.


Background:

The first new recording Black Sabbath made after the Heaven and Hell album was a version of the title track The Mob Rules for the soundtrack of the film Heavy Metal. The track E5150 is also heard in the film but not included on the soundtrack. According to guitarist Tony Iommi's autobiography Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath, the band began writing and rehearsing songs for Mob Rules at a rented house in Toluca Lake in Los Angeles. Initially the band hoped to record in their own studio to save money and actually purchased a sound desk; but, according to Iommi, "We just couldn't get a guitar sound. We tried it in the studio. We tried it in the hallway. We tried it everywhere but it just wasn't working. We'd bought a studio and it wasn't working!" The band eventually recorded the album at the Record Plant in Los Angeles.


Mob Rules was the first Sabbath album to feature Vinny Appice on drums, who had replaced original member Bill Ward in the middle of the Heaven and Hell tour. Asked by Joe Matera in 2007 if working with a new drummer was jarring after so many years, bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler replied, "No, because Vinnie was a big fan of the band and loved Bill's playing. Bill was one of his favourite drummers and so he knew all his parts and my bass parts and he adjusted accordingly to everybody in the band. He was brilliant. He came in and totally filled in Bill's shoes."


In an interview for the concert film Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven and Hell, Butler cites The Sign of the Southern Cross as his favourite Mob Rules track because "it gave me a chance to experiment with some bass effects". The album was the last time the band worked with producer and engineer Martin Birch, who went on to work with Iron Maiden until his retirement in 1992. Iommi explained to Guitar World in 1992, "We were all going through a lot of problems at that time, most of it related to drugs. Even the producer, Martin Birch, was having drug problems, and it hurt the sound of that record. Once that happens to your producer, you’re really screwed."


Again, Mob Rules would be singer Ronnie James Dio's second and final studio recording with Black Sabbath until the Mob Rules-era line-up reunited for 1992's Dehumanizer. The seeds of discontent appear to have sprouted when Dio was offered a solo deal by Warner Brothers, with Iommi stating in his memoir, "After the (Heaven and Hell) record became such a great success, Warner Brothers extended the contract at the same time, offering Ronnie a solo deal. That felt a bit odd to us, because we were a band and we didn't want to separate anybody." Dio confided in an interview on the Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven and Hell DVD that the recording of Mob Rules was far more difficult for him than Heaven and Hell because "we approached the writing very much differently than the first one. Geezer had gone so we wrote in a very controlled environment in a living room with little amplifiers. And with Mob Rules we hired a studio, turned up as loud as possible and smashed through it all. So it made for a different kind of an attitude".


Vinny Appice stated in a 2021 interview with Pariah Burke that the writing for the album was largely a collaborative process done through jam sessions. He stated, "We put songs together by jamming and playing together and putting ideas in the pot. It's a natural way of doing it and it works really well for us. That's how we did all the big albums like Mob Rules and Holy Diver. Nobody came in with a song.”


Iommi reflected to Guitar World in 1992, "Mob Rules was a confusing album for us. We started writing songs differently for some reason, and ended up not using a lot of really great material. That line-up was really great, and the whole thing fell apart for very silly reasons — we were all acting like children." The major problem, noted by Mick Wall in his book Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe, was that the balance of power within the band had shifted: "With Bill and Ozzy happy to leave the heavy lifting to Tony and Geezer, in terms of songwriting, coming into the studio only when they were called, even as their flair deserted them over the final, dismal Ozzy-era albums, at least everybody knew where they stood. Now, though, the creative chemistry had shifted."


"I still like that album", Iommi reflected in 1997.


Critical Reception:

“Mob Rules” was released on November 4, 1981 to mixed reviews. In the US, it went gold and in the UK it reached the Top 20 and spawned two chart singles, the title track and Turn Up the Night.


AllMusic's Greg Prato called the album "underrated" and enthused;

"Mob Rules was given a much punchier in-your-face mix by Birch, who seemed re-energized after his work on New Wave of British Heavy Metal upstarts Iron Maiden's Killers album. Essentially Mob Rules is a magnificent record, with the only serious problem being the sequencing of the material which mirrors Heaven and Hell's almost to a tee."

Guitarist Tony Iommi acknowledged this common criticism in his memoir, admitting that he was frustrated at being accused of making Heaven and Hell part two' and speculating that the band would have been criticized regardless of their approach.


Seven of the album's tracks were played live on the Mob Rules Tour. E5150 was used as an intro tape, and Over and Over was the only song not featured on the tour in any way. While the title track was the only song from this album regularly played by Black Sabbath on subsequent tours, Falling Off the Edge of the World was performed live by Heaven & Hell (which consisted of the same Black Sabbath lineup that recorded Mob Rules), and Sign of the Southern Cross was occasionally played live by Dio.


J.D. Constantine of Rolling Stone gave Mob Rules a negative review in February 1986.


Profiling the album in 2008, Bryan Reesman noted;

"Even with Dio bringing in more fantasy-based lyrics and moving the group away from seemingly Satanic verses, the title track to Mob Rules, not to mention its menacing cover could easily imply a call to anarchy. But beyond the snarling guitars and vocals is actually a cautionary tale against mindless mayhem."

Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells



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