As soon as I saw Behind The Wall Of Sleep pop up as an advertisement, I knew I would have to find at least one copy of it for my collection. Partially, this was of course because I’m always interested in hearing whatever I can get my hands on from Sabbath… like many of us, I’ll even take the cutting room floor scraps from those first six albums. I’ll admit though, what really drew me, at least initially, was the artwork. I’m not sure if the cover design itself is just a very good AI generated interpretation of the Mapledurham Watermill, or if this is actually a painting that was nicked from another, perhaps more respectable source. I suppose I could do some detective work to maybe find out, but some things are best left a mystery.
Speaking of mysteries, the backside of the jacket features a woman whose very identity remained a mystery in the Sabbath lexicon for nearly fifty years. “The Witch”, as she had become known, was of course the ominous presence standing in front of the mill on the cover of the original, self-titled album Black Sabbath. Sometime in 2020, her identity was revealed to be one Louisa Livingstone, who was an area model. I wanted to believe the “backstage” looking photo featured here had some connection to the Keith Macmillan cover shoot, but alas it does not. In fact, this photo of Livingstone was taken in 1971 at the National Theatre in London. It’s still a very cool piece of Sabbath history and goes to show just how cool unofficial record releases can be when they are well thought out.
I also like to believe that the thought process behind putting a revealed Louisa on the jacket, as well as showing the watermill from a plainer, less demonic looking perspective and with no water in it, are sort of an allegorical nod to the content of this double LP set. After all, what we are getting here is a behind the scenes look at how an album we’ve come to know and love over the last fifty-four years came together. Full of outtakes, remakes, alternate lyrics, overdubs and instrumentals, Behind The Wall of Sleep is a treasure trove for Sabbath fans everywhere.
Of course, the material presented here isn’t newly discovered, and most Sabbath diehards will have heard it a time or two before. In fact, a portion of the material was featured on another LP I reviewed not too long ago. Since it didn’t have a title, I started referring to it as the Red Castle album, and you can find my thoughts on it, as well as a track listing, right here. I first became aware of some of these tracks through an internet release (leak?) that was titled something like Black Sabbath: Regent Studios. As I remember, this compilation featured bits from the Regent Studios recording sessions at another studio called Trident Studios, back in 1969. It’s probably still available somewhere out there in depths of the internet, waiting to be discovered by Sabbath loving psychos like me. Behind The Wall Of Sleep, however, certainly covers a lot more ground, and has it’s own unique features that set it apart.
As a piece of physical media, this set is really amazing. Each copy comes sealed in the typical fashion and includes a numbered hype sticker on the front of the jacket itself. Apparently, this release is limited to only 300 copies worldwide. I have already mentioned the outside jacket artwork, but this is also a gatefold. As you can see, the inside features a quite well-known image of our four heroes taken at some point before they reached the top of the musical world. The printing inside and out is top notch, and everything is sharp and glossy. The records themselves come in white poly-lined inner sleeves, and mine in immaculate condition. The labels feature the Black Sabbath name in the correct font, as well as the Henry logo which was adopted by the band in much later years. The tracks and side numbers are clearly marked, but oddly, someone gave up on listing the track running times by the time they got to Side 4.
The wax is certainly heavy weight, and my records were totally flat and free of defects. The advertisements I saw listed this set as “coloured vinyl”, and it turns out that means purple. As far as I can tell, it’s the only color available. It’s plain purple, free from swirls, splatter or the like, but it’s quite nice. Whoever Graveyard Records are certainly did a great job with the packaging. Originally, this set was supposed to be released over a month earlier and was delayed for some reason. Normally I don’t dive right into the latest releases the same day I get them, but the delay and anticipation got to me. Even though they looked fine, I gave the discs a thorough cleaning and went to spin them immediately.
Right out of the gate, I think it’s important to note that this release probably isn’t going to be for the casual fan. There are a lot of false starts and stops, and some of the tracks are mostly valuable and desirable for historical purposes rather than sitting down and rocking out to some righteous heavy metal. In any case, here is the track listing, and I’ll point out a few of the songs that were particularly interesting to me.
Behind The Wall Of Sleep – Graveyard Records*
1-1 Black Sabbath (takes 1&2)
1-2 Black Sabbath (take 3)
1-3 The Wizard (studio outtake)
1-4 Behind The Wall Of Sleep (takes 1&2)
1-5 Behind The Wall Of Sleep (take 3)
2-1 N.I.B. (master take)
2-2 Evil Woman (take 1)
2-3 Evil Woman (single version from vinyl transfer)
2-4 Wicked World (single b-side from vinyl transfer)
3-1 Sleeping Village (intro takes 1&2)
3-2 Sleeping Village (take 1)
3-3 Warning Part 1
3-4 Warning Middle Section (remake)
3-5 Warning Part 2
4-1 Evil Woman (take 6)
4-2 Evil Woman (take 7 – instrumental)
4-3 Evil Woman (master with extra drum overdub)
4-4 The Rebel (take 1)
4-5 The Rebel (take 14)
4-6 The Rebel (master with guitar overdub)
4-7 When I Came Down (unreleased)
*“Direct transfer from the studio master tapes including unreleased and alternate versions in superb audio quality”
“Black Sabbath” starts the first LP, and the mix is fantastic. We get two different takes in the span of about a minute, and then a longer version of the song with some alternate lyrics. Surprisingly, the audio quality established with this first track remains more or less consistent for the entire record, which is impressive. “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” is certainly album quality, as is what they are referring to as the “master take” of “N.I.B.” “Sleeping Village” and “Warning” also make appearances, with some different takes and some rethought out, early parts.
Personally, my favorite set of tracks is probably the different versions of “Evil Woman”. Some people might not like this song, and certainly the band didn’t like it, but I have always thought it fits the first album well. If not for the musical style, certainly for the title and lyrics. Here we have two different full band takes, as well as the single version transferred from the original vinyl and a version with an extra drum overdub. The instrumental version is my favorite though, and the sound is absolutely superb. For me, these tracks were worth the price as well as the long wait for the set to arrive.
All of the audio on this release sounds great, but Side 4 in particular is very powerful and full sounding. This is, of course, where we find a few different versions of the aforementioned “Evil Woman”, as well as several versions of “The Rebel” and the demo “When I Came Down”. These last two tracks were written by a guy called Norman Haines, back at the time that Sabbath were performing under the name “Earth”. While they are very cool songs, they certainly do not fit on a Black Sabbath album, at least in my opinion. Still, musically it’s a great track, and Ozzy does an amazing job with the vocals. It’s a very cool song to just enjoy as a “one off”. “When I Came Down” probably fits the band a little bit better, but it still has a very different and unique sound to it. To me, it kind of sounds like Iommi is playing a dobro, which of course lends itself to more of a country feel than hard rock or hard blues.
Overall, Behind The Wall Of Sleep is an amazing release, and certainly one of my favorite Sabbath “rarities” type records. I actually have a few more I want to talk about yet, but I’m trying to space them out. It’s true that most of these have the same material over and over again in one form or another, but they all seem to have one or two things that make them special and worth having. Then again, if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to get them all anyway. Audio quality wise, this is a solid 10/10. Neither one of my discs had any surface noise, and I can’t imagine there is cleaner or better source material out there for these tracks. The mix sounds fantastic, even for a bootleg! Pressing and packaging are also a 10/10, making this Graveyard Records release nearly perfect, at least in my opinion.
From what I have seen, people are enjoying this release and reacting accordingly, with copies selling out quickly. I have actually seen one or two copies at brick-and-mortar record stores near me, so it might be worth venturing out and giving that approach a try if you are looking to snag one for your collection. Be aware though, that in-store prices are (already!) up to double what these originally went for online. They have to keep the lights on, I guess, but you might want to shop around. If you do find one, my advice would be not to sleep on it and pick it up immediately to avoid future regret. If you are a Sabbath fan, I think you’ll thank me later!