Black Sabbath played their final show in February 2017, leaving a legendary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame career in their wake. But even iconic acts have some bumps in the road, one of them being 1995’s Forbidden album. Now, guitarist Tony Iommi is hoping to give the disc the sound he feels it deserves.
Forbidden featured a lineup of Iommi, singer Tony Martin, bassist Neil Murray, drummer Cozy Powell, and keyboardist Geoff Nicholls. It would mark the band’s last album before their 2013 disc, 13, which was recorded by Iommi and fellow founding members Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler, along with Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk.
Upon its release in 1995, Forbidden was lambasted by critics and fans alike for its poor production. The original album was produced by Body Count guitarist Ernie C, and even featured Ice-T on the opening track “The Illusion of Power”.
In a Facebook video to fans posted on Saturday (as transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), Iommi acknowledged the criticism.
“Hello everybody. It’s that time of year again, it’s all happening,” began Iommi in the video. “It’s Christmas. We’ve had great Christmas here and I hope you have too. It’s been good fun. And it’s been a great year as well, I’ve enjoyed being at home and doing other things, as well as music.”
He continued, “Next year there will be the Forbidden album coming out, which we’re remixing at the moment, Mike Exeter and myself. And that’s been interesting too, pulling that apart and at least try and get some better sounds on it. As it should be. I know Cozy [Powell] was never happy with his drum sound, and none of us were really happy with the sound on that album. So, hopefully, now it will be sounding better.”
In addition to working on a new mix for Forbidden, Iommi revealed this past summer that he was working on material for a new solo album, also with engineer Mike Exeter.
