Geezer Butler

Collected together for the first time, ‘Manipulations Of The Mind – The Complete Collection’, assembles the entire solo works of founding Black Sabbath bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler across four CDs.  Featuring the albums ‘Plastic Planet’ (1995), ‘Black Science’ (1997), and ‘Ohmwork’ (2005), with a bonus 4th disc of rare and largely unreleased material, ‘Manipulations Of The Mind’ shines the spotlight on a creative force who, as chief master of the heavy metal originators heavyweight bottom-end and the lyrics that gave voice to the monolithic riffs, didn’t rest on his laurels and created three solo albums of forward-thinking new music throughout those years. The 4th bonus disc is a treasure trove of unreleased demos, studio outtakes, single edits and three live tracks captured at the Majestic Theatre, Detroit, MI, February 1996, alongside the song ‘Beach Skeleton’, only previously heard on the Japanese edition of ‘Black Science’.

Geezer Butler was incredibly busy in 1997. When he wasn't reunited with Ozzy Osbourne for a Black Sabbath tour, the longtime Sabbath bassist was fronting his own band, GZR – a thrash metal unit that doesn't hesitate to be brutally intense on Black Science. It's crystal clear that when Butler recorded this superb CD, the last thing on his mind was trying to emulate Sabbath. In fact, the band's sound is closer to Slayer than Sabbath, and the bonecrushing, ultra-heavy album is best described as thrash with elements of alternative rock and industrial noise.

1988 UK/France limited edition 55-track 6-CD album box set including 6 extra live tracks - Tomorrows Dream, Wicked World, Killing Yourself To Live, Children Of The Grave, Cornucopia & Sweet Leaf. Also includes 96 page booklet and a silver Devil/Crucifix badge. Housed in gold embossed black box - numbered edition of 3000 copies only!

Black Sabbath have been so influential in the development of heavy metal rock music as to be a defining force in the style. The group took the blues-rock sound of late-'60s acts like Cream, Blue Cheer, and Vanilla Fudge to its logical conclusion, slowing the tempo, accentuating the bass, and emphasizing screaming guitar solos and howled vocals full of lyrics expressing mental anguish and macabre fantasies. If their predecessors clearly came out of an electrified blues tradition, Black Sabbath took that tradition in a new direction, and in so doing helped give birth to a musical style that continued to attract millions of fans decades later.