Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Mollo, Dario & Martin, Tony
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2012
Runtime: 49:26
Rating: 4/5
Dario Mollo and Tony Martin are a duo some of you might remember from the days when we were all feverishly desperate for just about any Black Sabbath album after 1995, when »Forbidden« came out, and which we never got to this day. An album, of course, carved in the image of Tony Martin’s time in this, one of the greatest rock/metal lineups ever to circle our solar system.
Tony Martin and Dario Mollo probably missed the return of Black Sabbath terribly back then, too, so around the turn of the millennium they put together two albums in fairly quick succession under The Cage project, and the critical crowd gave them a big thumbs up. Then came a long break. A whole ten years before we got a new studio album. The third installment of The Cage project. Simply and sensibly summed up in the title »The Third Cage«.
You could say that the musical philosophy of Dario Mollo, the main driving force behind this project, hasn’t budged one bit over the past decade. Mollo has made a huge leap forward as a producer during that time, since »The Third Cage« is a real little producer’s rhapsody in blue. You can feel the experience that comes with years of living in the music business. »The Third Cage« has a raw, alive, bold and very direct sound. At the same time, the guitars, or rather the guitar phrases, have kept a clearly »blurry smear« that calls out to some of the production fads of modern times. Given how closely the guitar phrases and the timed rhythmic loops echo the notorious body of work of Black Sabbath without Ozzy, you absolutely shouldn’t expect or demand that »The Third Cage« be played by Tony Iommi’s one-of-a-kind hands, or have its rhythmic machinery driven by the singular mythical constitution of Cozy Powell. »The Third Cage« is simply a very nice approximation of all that. And given Black Sabbath’s eternal rest, that’s totally enough. The middle instrumental sections are, of course, enriched with nicely carved solos, and the transitional passages are vividly dressed up with guitar embellishments (One Of The Few offers the most interesting use of these tricks on the album, and with its major-key chorus it even strays furthest from the classic Sabbath template). Something new for new times is the flirtation with sampling, which Mollo uses to deepen the album’s gloomy atmosphere (the opening Wicked World pulls you into it, and the feeling is honestly built up by the reinforced rhythmic groove of the verses in Cirque Du Freak). That wasn’t there on the first two albums of The Cage project.
The Sabbath obsession with the late romantic period, which set in for the legendary band somewhere around the album »The Eternal Idol«, doesn’t let up on this album either, so this is a record tailor-made for fans of that Black Sabbath era, and in terms of vibe it also logically ties in with all the Sabbath albums with Ronnie James Dio on vocals. When you fight your way through to the third track, the mini epic suite Oh My Soul, with its grasping, doomy yet solemn atmosphere, you won’t be able to escape the associations this song stirs up, calling to mind the Black Sabbath classic of the same name, The Seventh Star. If you’re after the biggest dose of doom, Still In Love With You will take you there most intimately, richly soaked in guitar embellishments of authentic “arabesques”.
All these “sensually dangerous” closenesses to Sabbath magic wouldn’t be on the album if the one and only Tony Martin hadn’t left his unique stamp on it. He has kept his whole elemental recognizability at an exceptional, practically untouchable level. This is the Tony Martin taken straight from the Sabbath albums, as well as from his solo career (in a live setting we can’t expect the freshness of twenty years ago from the singer, but in the studio the vocal wear and tear is masked brilliantly). The Cage project has poured a good share of Black Sabbath’s occult into its legacy. The verses run in that direction. The direction of doom, obsession with the devil, deadly tempting sin you can’t resist, witchcraft. Against the staked-out melos, which mostly imitates the legacy of Black Sabbath in the eighties and the first half of the nineties, his vocal works in this kind of ambience optimally in terms of expressive character. And Tony Martin’s vocal stamp is that primal link to the legends, which really makes this album so interesting, even though in terms of expression it doesn’t uncover anything new.
»The Third Cage« is an album that will be interesting to all fans of Tony Martin’s vocals, and it could also widen his base of supporting fans who still go to his solo shows. It would be nice to meet the embodiment of this music on a potential concert tour. Its license is justified in every way. Among less musically demanding audiences, as is the case in, say, Italy, it might even trigger a genuine mass turnout. Of course, Black Sabbath devotees absolutely have to check this album out too. It stands alongside the two previous The Cage albums. It holds its own next to them, and in terms of development it has passed the test of time, since it adapted to production trends. It also proves that Dario Mollo, over the decade of that 10-year break, managed to carve out some poisonously infectious guitar phrases too. Of course, under the obsession of eternal inspiration with the elegance and mastery of the primal cannonade of the Tony Iommi riff.
Lineup
Tony Martin – vocals
Dario Mollo – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards
Roberto Gualdi – drums
Fulvio Gaslini – bass guitar
Dario Patti – keyboards
Brian War – keyboards
Production
Dario Mollo
Track List
1. Wicked World
2. Cirque Du Freak
3. Oh My Soul
4. One Of The Few
5. Still In Love With You
6. Can’t Stay Here
7. Wardance
8. Don’t Know What It Is About You
9. Blind Fury
10. Violet Moon
