Six years! It took six long years to finally get a follow up to Nativity In Black, and it wasn't entirely worth it.Most of the songs on the original Nativity were pretty faithful to the originals, but with personal tweeks from the bands so that the songs sounded like the artists/groups performing them, and not just blatant covers. This album went a little more to the personalized side. All the songs sound like the original, except for one, but the different stylization changes in some cases really hurt some songs while others were made into interesting listens.
Also like the original, this album mainly features groups performing the songs together, with the exception of Ozzy. This time he is joined by Primus. Also a quarter of the bands this time represent a new style of Metal that didn't exsist when the last album was released, Nu Metal. There's also Hip Hop/Rap elements on this album too. Yikes!
The album starts with Godsmack performing Sweet Leaf. I'm not a fan of Godsmack, but I don't dislike them either. This cover is pretty much the same thing. It's good, but not as good as the original.
Hole In The Sky, performed by Machine Head follows that up. It's pretty decent, not as good as other covers I've heard of this song, but acceptable.
Static-X crank out a version of Behind The Wall Of Sleep, which is impressive since it's not the *most common Sabbath song. That's where the praise stops, and the ripping on the album never starts.
Megadeth are the only returning band from the original Nativity In Black. This time they are performing Never Say Die, a song so rare that it never gets airplay of any type. In fact the Original band pretty much ignore this song and the album it came from all together. That being said, this is a great song, and the Megadeth cover is just as good, if not better, than the original one.
A uniquely stylized version of Snow Blind is played by System Of A Down. This is a band I've never really cared for. I respect them as musicians, but for the most part they are a little too screamy for me. This song doesn't have that problem. Instead it sounds like they only learned half the song and then faked their way through the rest. The product is actually a very interesting and still enjoyable rendition of the song.
Electric Funeral is done by Pantera on this album. I'm not sure why they weren't able to contribute to the last tribute record, but based on this performance that was a mistake. Pantera is one of the few yelling Metal bands I like. They also cover Black Sabbath better than anyone else I have ever heard. I would have paid good money for an entire Sabbath album done by them.
Primus backs up Ozzy for a stunning rendition of N.I.B. Much like the last album this pretty much sounds like a complete modern redo of the original, except Primus plays this complicated song with more of the same ease as the original band. In fact you would swear that Les Claypool studied every single finger placement that Geezer Butler originally played.
Aside from Seasons In the Abyss, and maybe one or two other songs, I have never had any use for Slayer. I owned a shirt I use to wear all the time from them, but that's only because my grandma bought it for me, and I felt I should wear it. However, this cover of Hand Of Doom is fantastic. They really did a bang up job on this song, while keeping it Slayer sounding.
Now Slayer is a band that's a little too much with the yelling and screaming for my likings, but they toned it down for their cover. Soulfly on the hand stunk up their cover of Under The Sun with nothing but boring standard punk growl yelling. Musically the song is very sound, but vocally I can't be bothered with it. Just not my thing.
Sabbra Cadabra is one of my favourite Sabbath songs, and I even come very close to saying that I like the Metallica version better than the original, because of the different arrangements. On this album that song is done by Hed (PE). It is like the original, more or less. This is the Hip Hop element I was talking about, which doesn't hurt the song, but it doesn't entirely help it either. It is the second most interesting (not best) song on this album.
Monster Magnet's Into the Void brings things back to normal, after an abnormal intro. I like these guys, they seem to know how to make good sounding music. I don't own anything from them as of this writing, but anything I've heard I've liked more or less. This song falls into that catagory too. My only real complaint is the track tends to drag on a bit longer than I would like.
The most interesting song on this album belongs to one of the few Rappers I actually like. Busta Rhymes performs Iron Man (This Means War). This is more Busta sampling Iron Man, but with actual musicians and Ozzy performing different/new lyrics that have nothing to do with the original. To me this is an entirely different song from the original, but is still very much a tribute in it's own way.
After this album I don't know if i would pick up a copy of Nativity in Black III if one ever came out, but it's cool to see the influence of Black Sabbath in different and unique ways. If I was a fan of more of the bands I would probably like this album more than I do. It's not that it's a bad cover album, I've heard worse. It's just not as good as the previous Nativity In Black.
7/10 - content
8/10 - production
7/10 - personal bias
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