A Stoner Tribute To Sabbath Vinyl Review

At this point in the journey Black Sabbath tributes are a dime a dozen, there’s enough of them out there to fill up the space of a small country. However, the bulk of’em aren’t worth more than one listen – hard to out do the originators of Heavy Metal! In 2015 Deadline Records (Cleopatra Records) released a tribute to Sabbath that I felt was worthy to keep around. The label capitalized on the blooming Stoner/Doom scene and unearthed a double disc tribute that was overflowing with great takes from some of the better bands from the scene. Unfortunately, the label opted to pass on a vinyl release, until now that is! This month the label finally released a vinyl version of this fantastic tribute.
 
Sadly, this release isn’t a double LP which means quite a few of the songs got cut due to time constraints. I’m not sure who oversaw the final track listing, but Wo Fat’s beautiful version of “The Warning” was left off and that’s a big miss in my opinion, but I’m a huge fan of the WO! Also missing is Mos Generator’s take on “Dirty Women” which is another fantastic highlight. Thankfully, “The Writ” from the band Stoned Jesus has been added here. SJ are one of the scene’s highlights in that they don’t steal from Sabbath at every turn, they stand alone. This cover should be a gateway into fandom for the average Stoner fan, I have several of their releases. “Hole in the sky” from Scorpion Child has also been added here, it wasn’t one of my favorites, but it’s still got some nice moments, and it fits the bill. “Planet Caravan” from the band Machaca gets its day here, this one was another of my favorites from the release the first time around. The band didn’t phone it in, they added drums and made the song much heavier than I ever thought possible. I would’ve thought Pantera would’ve done this when they covered this track, but they didn’t. The title track of the CD release “Sweet Leaf” shows up big time in one of the fuzziest takes I’ve ever heard. If I still smoked weed, I’d kick back fire one up and listen to this one over and over. Weedpecker have been out ‘Stoning’ everyone in the scene for awhile now! Psychedelic spaced out and chill moments fill the air whenever you put Weedpecker on the box! No Sabbath tribute would be complete without Pentagram, next to Sabbath, they’re a definitive band in the genre. If you’re not already a fan, the band’s take on “Tomorrow’s Dream” should send you down a rabbit hole for a few weeks. Don’t worry, it’s a hole you want to jump in!

There are a few more covers to be soaked up on this release, all of them great save for the shit show that was William Shatner’s cover of “Iron Man”. I don’t know what that was about, so I just choose to ignore it, you might want to do the same. So, if you’re a fan of vinyl and Sabbath, this will be a worthy vinyl release to add to your collection. As for me, I’m hoping they’ll do a part 2 and release the rest of the tracks that were on the original CD, so I can have both additions in my collection.

~Black Angel