Headless Cross

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Headless Cross
Studio album by Black Sabbath
Released	April 24, 1989
Recorded	August - November 1988 at Soundmill, Woodcray & Amazon Studios
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	40:24
Label	I.R.S.
Producer	Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell
Professional reviews
Allmusic link
Black Sabbath chronology
The Eternal Idol (1987) Headless Cross (1989) Tyr (1990)

Headless Cross is the fourteenth album by heavy metal band Black Sabbath, released in 1989.

This is the band's second album to feature singer Tony Martin and the first to feature drummer Cozy Powell.

Album information

Laurence Cottle played bass on the recording on a session-basis but was never an official band member. Cottle did appear in the video for the title track but was not featured in any promotional photos.

Headless Cross was praised among critics and fans, being considered the best Sabbath album in years and is an album that both Martin and Tony Iommi are very proud of.^{[citation needed]} The lyrics on the album have predominantly Satanic and occult elements, the only time in the band's career where an entire album is based on such ideals rather than select songs. Sales-wise, the album and tour did very well in the UK and Europe.^{[citation needed]} Sales in the US were low leading to the curtailment of the tour. In interviews the band cited lack of promotion of the live dates to have been the problem.^{[citation needed]} It peaked at number 115 on the Billboard 200 chart.^[1]

The track "When Death Calls" has a guitar solo by Queen guitarist Brian May, he is the only guitarist to guest on a Black Sabbath song.

The song "Call of the Wild" was originally going to be titled "Hero", but when Ozzy Osbourne used that title on his album No Rest for the Wicked Tony Iommi opted to change its title.^{[citation needed]} "Devil & Daughter" also had the original title "Devil's Daughter", but was changed for the same reason.^{[citation needed]}

"Call of the Wild" and "Devil & Daughter" are also the only songs that don't end slowly fading out with Tony Martin ad-libbing (though "Nightwing" has only the band performing fading out with no ad-libbing on Martin's part)

For the live show in support of this album, "Ave Satani", the main theme from Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar-winning soundtrack for The Omen, was used as the intro tape, beginning as the house lights went down. This would then segue into a taped recording of "The Gates Of Hell" before the band would begin the show with "Headless Cross". This intro-tape of "Ave Satani"/ "The Gates Of Hell" was used as many times during various tours over the years up until the Reunion shows. "Headless Cross" would be played on all subsequent tours when Tony Martin was in the band but the only other track from the "Headless Cross" album to last beyond that tour was "When Death Calls".

"Headless Cross" yielded two radio singles; an edit of the title track and "Devil & Daughter"

The first recording of "Black Moon" was a B-side to a single of "The Eternal Idol", performed in a different key.

The bonus track, "Cloak & Dagger", was featured on the vinyl picture disc edition and also as the b-side on all three formats (7", 12" and CD) of the album's first single, the a-side being the title track.

Reportedly, according to Tony Martin, the vocals on "Nightwing" were actually the original guide vocals but for whatever reason were kept in the final recording.^{[citation needed]}

"Headless Cross" is about a part of a town south of Sabbath's native Birmingham, Headless Cross in Redditch, and is reportedly named after all the church crosses were defaced during the plague that struck the town's inhabitants centuries earlier.^{[citation needed]} (See: Districts of Redditch)

Track listing

All songs were written by Black Sabbath, except where noted.

Side one

1. "The Gates of Hell" – 1:06
   • instrumental
2. "Headless Cross" (Tony Martin, Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell) – 6:29
3. "Devil & Daughter" (Martin, Iommi, Powell) – 4:44
4. "When Death Calls" – 6:55

Side two

1. "Kill in the Spirit World" – 5:11
2. "Call of the Wild" – 5:18
3. "Black Moon" – 4:06
4. "Nightwing" – 6:35

Bonus tracks

9. "Cloak & Dagger" (picture disc only) - 4:37

Personnel

• Tony Martin – Vocals
• Tony Iommi – guitar
• Geoff Nicholls – keyboard
• Laurence Cottle – bass guitar
• Cozy Powell – drums
• Brian May – guitar solo on "When Death Calls"

References

1. ^ "Billboard album chart history-Black Sabbath". http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.chartFormatGroupName=Albums&model.vnuArtistId=4105&model.vnuAlbumId=545105. Retrieved on February 15, 2009.