What the hell did you expect?

One could hardly think of another album that is such a predictable and logical result of the very way it was produced. Just remember how BLACK SABBATH explained that when  they began work on the record with Rick Rubin, the producer gathered the musicians, played them their self-titled debut and said 'listen to this, imagine it's 1969, you've just done that, what would you do next?'

And '13' is exactly that – a collection of songs the metal godfathers could've written 40 years ago and released them instead of 'Paranoid.'
 
It's like someone ran the first six SABBATH records through a shredder and then assembled the new songs from the pieces.

Opener 'End of Beginning' aims at resurrecting the ominous vibe of the self-titled track from the first album; for nine minutes lead single 'God Is Dead?' drags along a borderline, across which it would've become 'War Pigs'; 'Zeitgeist' sounds like an attempt to rewrite 'Planet Caravan'; in 'Age of Reason' the main riff is laced by synthesizers, reminding the proggy experiments of 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' before an 'oh yeah' would rewind the tape back to 'N.I.B.'

It is all gigantic Tony Iommi riffs, despair-soaked Ozzy Osbourne vocals, sinister bass lines by Geezer Butler and energetic drumming by Bard Wilk who plays as if all his life he wanted to be Bill Ward.

The classic BLACK SABBATH sounding like the classic BLACK SABBATH. It's not like anyone expected anything else, is it?

Still, the album does have its distinct face.

Ozzy has his own vocal lines and doesn't sing along Iommi's riffs as he did in the 70s.

Also, back then there were moments where rays of light would cut through the all over darkness. There's none of that here.

Maybe it is because '13' was born in an age when the dominant cultural tone and vibe is blacker than ever, or due to the whole story with Iommi's cancer he just didn't feel like writing uplifting songs, but the result is positively BLACK SABBATH's darkest, heaviest (not only sound-wise) and saturated with despair album in their whole history.

And when the end of closer 'Dear Father' comes – and you hear the same rain and evil ringing bells with which it all started in 1970 – you realize that with '13' the cycle is closed.

This album is not a return. It is a tomb stone. The most monumental one there could have been.