Black Sabbath recording first album with Ozzy Osbourne since 1978

Black Sabbath have recorded six songs for a new studio album produced by Rick Rubin – their first with original singer Ozzy Osbourne since 1978’s Never Say Die!, and also featuring Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, the original guitarist and bass player.

In an interview with Blairing Out, Iommi said: “We’ve written the 15 songs and we’ve played them all, but now at the moment we’re recording them. We’re about six tracks in at the moment.”

However, he said, there was no chance of original drummer Bill Ward rejoining the fold. “We’ll always have a heart for Bill, but I think it’s gone past that now, because it’s gone on so long I don’t see that happening at the moment.”

What’s “gone on so long” appears to be the disagreement between Ward and the rest of the band after he was excluded from this summer’s headline show at Download festival “I [can’t] help feeling some resentment towards the failure to reach an agreement, the failure to remember where we came from, the failure to be as brothers, as we once were,” Ward said before the festival. “To be clear, I’m not blaming the other guys or finding any faults with them. I would think it can’t be easy for them either, but this situation is just really sad.”

However, the news that Black Sabbath have made it back into the studio will delight fans, given that earlier this year 64-year-old Iommi was diagnosed with early-stage lymphoma. Indeed, the band are throwing themselves into projects, and last week announced their first Australian shows since 1974. The new album is due for release in April 2013.

Source: The Guardian