Special Report by Martin Popoff
Did you get these tracks anywhere near a finished state?
"Some of them, sort of. There are no real lyrics yet. That's always the last thing that we put on. But there are about three of them that we're probably ready to record. And all we need now is about twelve others as good as that and we'll be fine (laughs). There's one really strange one, sort of like a ballad, very radio-friendly, and that was the first one to be dumped (laugh), very commercial. We're not going to rush the album because if it doesn't sound right, if it's not up to scratch as an album, then we won't put it out."
And here's Bill's impression of the songs thus far. "I think that they're pretty melodic, definitely hard rock. I think that they're a good start in a sense that they are from four guys getting together who haven't actually written anything together for a long, long, long time. I feel that the beginning shows incredible potential and promise. There are some slower songs which actually have some jazz and real melodic feels and there's a real melodic one that I was going to say is almost like 'Changes', but in a rhythm sense it's nothing like 'Changes'. It really compliments Ozzy's kind of lament voice. I don't know, there's something that is just totally awesome about his voice when he sings sad songs; it just turns out great. So we have something in that range, and then we have something that is just so tight and uptempo and total f**king metal, so the range is quite wide. We've just started to tap the mother lode. I don't know, but there's potentially enough material to go for a long, long time, not just for one album. But it's very exciting. There are a lot of different ideas."
Black Sabbath - Four Unfinished Albums and a Baby Tour Page 6