Digipack 3 disc release. The first disc is the original album, Disc 2 is a DVD audio disc with a quadraphonic mix of the album and disc 3 is alternative versions and outtakes.
The disc are housed in a thick fold-out digipak & stickered slipcase, complete with picture booklets containing previously unseen photos, comprehensive notes telling the album's story plus images of rare single covers & memorabilia from the period.
BBC Review
With its monolithic slabs of sound and Tony Iommi's guitar so growlingly low as to be almost subterranean, Black Sabbath's second album maps out the same pessimistic pathways as their self-titled debut, also released in 1970. Despite having cover artwork featuring a bloke with his Y-fronts outside of his long-johns, waving a plastic sword whilst wearing a crash-helmet, Sabbath meant business, and their dirge-drill was set to max, aiming straight for the skull.
The title track, famously dashed off in a few minutes, was a surprise hit in the singles charts. Claustrophobic and oppressive, this is dark stuff dominated by Iommi's blunt riff and Ozzie Osborne's emotionally numbed monotone sounding like car alarm gone on the blink. About as understated as a navvie's 14-pound hammer, it sold bucketloads, drawing in yet more fans attracted to the no-frills pounding of proto-metal.
Though popularly associated with the Devil and all his works, the songs here are more sci-fi than Satan, charting apocalyptic futures, dystopian regimes and comic-book characterisations of politicians and the military. The spacey ballad 'Planet Caravan', with Osborne's vocals rinsed through a gauze of filters shows them capable of softening things when the urge took them. The only real clunker is 'Rat Salad', an instrumental bookend for a drum solo. Though it probably worked well enough on stage, shoehorned into the studio it sounds rather cramped and lacklustre.
Disc: 1
1. War Pigs (2009 Remastered Version)
2. Paranoid (2009 Remastered Version)
3. Planet Caravan (2009 Remastered Version)
4. Iron Man (2009 Remastered Version)
5. Electric Funeral (2009 Remastered Version)
6. Hand of Doom (2009 Remastered Version)
7. Rat Salad (2009 Remastered Version)
8. Fairies Wear Boots (2009 Remastered Version)
Disc: 2
1. War Pigs (2009 Remastered Version)
2. Paranoid (2009 Remastered Version)
3. Planet Caravan (2009 Remastered Version)
4. Iron Man (2009 Remastered Version)
5. Electric Funeral (2009 Remastered Version)
6. Hand of Doom (2009 Remastered Version)
7. Rat Salad (2009 Remastered Version)
8. Fairies Wear Boots (2009 Remastered Version)
9. War Pigs (DVD Stereo)
10. Paranoid (DVD Stereo)
11. Planet Caravan (DVD Stereo)
12. Iron Man (DVD Stereo)
13. Electric Funeral (DVD Stereo)
14. Hand of Doom (DVD Stereo)
15. Rat Salad (DVD Stereo)
16. Fairies Wear Boots (DVD Stereo)
17. War Pigs (Quadraphonic Mix)
18. Paranoid (Quadraphonic Mix)
19. Planet Caravan (Quadraphonic Mix)
20. Iron Man (Quadraphonic Mix)
21. Electric Funeral (Quadraphonic Mix)
22. Hand Of Doom (Quadraphonic Mix)
23. Rat Salad (Quadraphonic Mix)
24. Fairies Wear Boots (Quadraphonic Mix)
Disc: 3
1. War Pigs (Instrumental)
2. Paranoid (Alternative Lyrics)
3. Planet Caravan (Alternative Lyrics)
4. Iron Man (Instrumental)
5. Electric Funeral (Instrumental)
6. Hand Of Doom (Instrumental)
7. Rat Salad (Alternative Mix)
8. Fairies Wear Boots (Instrumental)
