Released on 9 September 1983,[2] it is the only album the group recorded with lead vocalist Ian Gillan, then-formerly of Deep Purple.

The band switched management to Don Arden (Sharon Osbourne's father) and he suggested Ian Gillan as the new vocalist.

[11] The following morning Gillan had no memory of joining the band and claimed he didn't even like Black Sabbath's music, but the deal had already been struck.

[7] Arden had secured a sizable advance from the record company with the proviso that Gillan be involved, and they would only release the album under the Black Sabbath name.

"[12] With Cozy Powell electing to remain with Coverdale in Whitesnake, Black Sabbath's longtime drummer Bill Ward was persuaded to return to the band.

Ward claimed to be newly sober after leaving the band in 1980 to deal with his alcoholism[13] and he assured Iommi and Butler that he was up to recording and touring once again.

[9] Ward began drinking at some point during the sessions and returned to Los Angeles for treatment once the album was completed, and has remained sober ever since.

Butler said that the tent situation and Gillan's refusal to live with his new bandmates, in hindsight, likely indicated that the vocalist didn't view himself as a member of the band.

For example, Gillan returned from a local pub one evening, took a car belonging to drummer Ward, and commenced racing around a go-cart track on the Manor Studio property.

[7] Butler felt that Gillan's lyrics on tracks such as "Digital Bitch" and "Keep It Warm" were good, but much better suited to the musical style of Deep Purple than Black Sabbath.

In 1992, Iommi admitted to Guitar World, "Ian is a great singer, but he's from a completely different background, and it was difficult for him to come in and sing Sabbath material."

In his autobiography, Iommi explains that Gillan inadvertently blew a couple of tweeters in the studio speakers by playing the backing tracks too loud and nobody noticed.

Butler recalled listening to the tapes in his hotel room and being alarmed at how "muffled and unclear" the tracks were, but Iommi and Black assured him that the issue would be corrected during mixing.

Ultimately, the issue never was corrected, with Butler lamenting years later that "that's what happens when you don't hire a bona fide producer, like Martin Birch, to handle things.

After Bill Ward had left the band for rehab, former Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan was hired for the subsequent tour.

In 2015, Butler clarified to Dave Everley of Classic Rock: "I left because my second child was born and he was having problems, so I wanted to stay with him.

[19] The Born Again album cover – depicting what Martin Popoff described as a "garish red devil-baby" – is by Steve 'Krusher' Joule, a Kerrang!

[22] The British magazine, Kerrang!, ranked the cover in second place, behind only the Scorpions' Lovedrive, on their list of "10 Worst Album Sleeves in Metal/Hard Rock".

[32] AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote that the album has "gone down as one of heavy metal's all-time greatest disappointments" and described "Zero the Hero", "Hot Line", and "Keep It Warm" as "embarrassing".

[3] Blender contributor Ben Mitchell gave the album one out of five stars and claimed that the music on Born Again was worse than its cover.

[32] The British magazine Metal Forces defined it "a very good album" even if "Gillan may not be the perfect frontman for the Sabs".

Author Martin Popoff has written that "if any album in the history of Black Sabbath is getting a new set of horns up from metalheads here deep into the new century, it's Born Again.

[36] Bill Stevenson, former drummer of Black Flag, stated the band was listening to the album around the time of My War, defining songs like "Trashed" and "Disturbing the Priest" as "ideal".

Ian Gillan expressed disappointment in the final production mix of the album, saying that although he did not break his first copy of it, "I threw it out the window of my car.

[41] In 2021, Tony Iommi claimed that the original master tapes, long thought lost, had been found and that he was considering remixing them for an eventual release.

[42][43] According to Iommi's autobiography, Ward began drinking again near the end of the Born Again recording sessions and returned to Los Angeles for treatment.

The set would be lampooned in Rob Reiner's 1984 rock music mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, with the band having the opposite problem of having to use miniature Stonehenge stage props.

[45] In an interview for the documentary Black Sabbath: 1978–1992, Gillan claims Don Arden had the dwarf walk across the top of the Stonehenge props at the start of the show and, as the tape of the screaming baby faded away, fall back "from about thirty-five feet in the air on this big pile of mattresses.

Sabbath performed Gillan's hit with Deep Purple, "Smoke on the Water", on the tour, with Iommi explaining in his memoir, "it seemed like a bum deal for him not to do any of his stuff while he was doing all of ours.

Tracks 3-11 recorded live at the Reading Festival on Saturday, August 27, 1983 and first aired on Friday Rock Show via BBC Radio 1.