Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been on a serious Black Sabbath kick these past few weeks since the release of the long awaited Tony Martin era boxset, Anno Domini 1989-1995. While there’s never been a point that I HAVEN’T appreciated the Martin era (save for prior to my discovery of said era in 7th grade), I think myself and the metal community as a whole have used this moment as one of reflection, reconsideration, and revisitation. Sure, Ozzy and Dio rule, but both have received their flowers and then some. Now it’s Tony Martin’s time to shine (pun fully intended), which is why today we revisit the one album excluded from the Anno Domini box, The Eternal Idol. “Rise up to the shining!”
By 1987, Black Sabbath were in a world of trouble. The past 4 years had been plagued by a revolving door of band members, eventually leaving founding guitarist Tony Iommi all by himself. This led to the writing and recording of his intended solo debut, Seventh Star, which was ultimately released under the moniker “Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi” thanks to record company pressure. This “incarnation” of Sabbath featured former Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes on vocals, bassist Dave Spitz (brother of Anthrax guitarist Dan Spitz), future KISS drummer Eric Singer, and trusty keyboardist Geoff Nicholls. To add insult to injury, Hughes was out of the band before the album’s accompanying tour even started and they went about promoting said album looking like this.
I’m the last person to criticize someone on their looks, but if you thought Carmine Appice in full glam metal regalia looked out of place, get a load of Tony Iommi with lipstick and eyeshadow. I get it. This was the era of the pretty boy, MTV friendly, glam metal centerfold. Jon Bon Jovi and Bret Michaels were plastered over the walls of teenage girls from coast to coast. Tony Iommi wasn’t, which brings us to the next point at hand: Black Sabbath were considered dinosaurs by their 1983 Born Again jaunt with Ian Gillan at the helm. Come ’87, the one time be all, end all metal band had achieved fossil status, sitting in the heavy metal history books alongside the likes of Uriah Heep, Blue Öyster Cult, Nazareth, UFO, and all the other pioneers of yesteryear who laid the foundation for the reigning hard and heavy royalty of the day.
Iommi sensed this as much as anybody, hence the rightful desperation to assemble a proper lineup and reclaim Sabbath’s prestige. At one point, Savatage frontman Jon Oliva was in the running to join Sabbath, but this quickly fell apart after a chance (again, pun fully intended) meeting with producer, songwriter, benefactor, and all around visionary, Paul O’Neill, but that’s another story for another day. When this didn’t pan out, Iommi was guided to hotshot singer Ray Gillen. Having fully demoed what would become the band’s next album, The Eternal Idol, Gillen was, for all intents and purposes, the new voice of Black Sabbath. Yet in true ’80s Sabbath fashion, this didn’t come to fruition either.
By the time Tony Martin finally got the call to record his vocal parts for The Eternal Idol, the album had already been fully written, arranged, and recorded. In other words, while it is technically the beginning of the Martin era, the album features zero artistic contributions from Martin, and is really a reflection of such. Sonically, The Eternal Idol lies somewhere between the commercialized metal/hard rock of Seventh Star and the ambitious melodic metal that would come to define the Martin era from Headless Cross onwards, making for one of the most unique listens in the Sabbath canon.
The album opens with one of my favorite Martin era Sabbath cuts, “The Shining”. Heavy and dramatic, both musically and lyrically, the opener chronicles a harrowing tale of foresight and madness. It also may or may not be loosely based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name. As forthright as Iommi’s guitars are Nicholl’s keyboards, which would become a common theme of the Martin era. Martin’s vocals should also be of note, dynamic and Dio-esque at times, yet also boasting their own unorthodox pseudo-AOR bravado. Couple this with Iommi’s signature riffage from hell and you’ve got one beast of a song.
The grandeur continues with the pomp metal bliss of “Ancient Warrior”. Steeped in picturesque fantastical lyricism and unparalleled atmosphere, it’s as if Sabbath had rekindled the arcane magic that had been virtually absent since Mob Rules. Don’t get me wrong; Born Again slaps, but sounds less like a continuation of the Dio era and more like a glorified drunken jam session (which it was). “Ancient Warrior” showcases a band refocusing and refining their writing and arrangement abilities, and is a prime example of what Iommi set out to achieve with this album.
On the other hand, “Hard Life to Love” sounds straight off Seventh Star, sleazy lead riff, hard rock swagger, and all. By no means is it “bad”. It’s just not what one would traditionally expect when dropping the needle on a Sabbath album. If anything, it comes off as a glorified Dokken outtake, which on its own would blow away most of the overly commercialized glam metal crop of the day. This is followed by the lumbering “Glory Ride”, which sees Iommi double down in the riff department. Indeed, the riffage on this one sounds steeped in the Dio era, yet is subtly contrasted by flashy ’80s synths and again, Martin’s bombastic vocal delivery.
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by what might be the sleaziest song in the entire Sabbath catalog (or at least tied with Born Again‘s “Hot Line”), “Born to Lose”. This HAD to be a Seventh Star leftover, and lord knows that album would be significantly better if it were featured on there. The riffage and energy on here SCREAMS weekend hedonism, women, whiskey, and sin galore. Again, one wouldn’t expect this from Black Sabbath, the one time Masters of Reality who singlehandedly invented doom metal, but this was the ’80s and anything went.
“Nightmare” strips things down to a modest heavy blues romp that almost sounds like an ’80s spin on the early Sabbath sound. While the second half picks up the pace, the riffs on this bad boy showcase Iommi’s love for all things groovy and soulful, with the riffs taking centerstage. A brief instrumental in “Scarlet Pimpernel” then sets the stage for the last of the “lost Seventh Star” cuts, “Lost Forever”. While not exactly fast enough to be labelled speed metal, “Lost Forever” is significantly uptempo by Sabbath standards, carried by a driving Eric Singer beat and reckless ’80s metal spirit. You definitely get the sense it was written to appeal to “the kids”.
Closing it all out is the album’s epic title track, and I can’t emphasize the word “epic” enough. On “Eternal Idol”, Iommi revisits the power doom niche that was innovated on Mob Rules. It’s slow, ominous, and cryptic, both Iommi’s guitar and Martin’s vocals working in unison to disorient the listener in the most mystical of ways. It’s also a fitting closer tot he album, as if to serve as a musical foreshadowing of what was to follow on the brilliant Headless Cross (1989). But again, more on that another time.
Unfortunately, The Eternal Idol was a commercial failure, especially in the States where Sabbath were most desperate to stake their claim. It sold so poorly stateside that the band didn’t even bother with an American tour, and by 1988, their near two decade partnership with Warner Brothers was history. On the flip side, The Eternal Idol served as a springboard for yet another exciting and exhilarating chapter in Sabbath history, one that has left has talking for decades since. If nothing else, it further cemented what we already knew to be true: Sabbath is eternal.