Technical Ecstasy is the seventh studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and released in October 1976 by Vertigo Records.
[6] An attempt by the band to experiment and explore other musical territory, Technical Ecstasy features more varied and complex songs than earlier records, with prominent keyboard parts and effects.
After frustrating legal battles that accompanied the recording of 1975's Sabotage, Sabbath chose Miami's Criteria Studios for the making of Technical Ecstasy, which continued the band's separation from the doom and darkness that had been a trademark of their earlier albums.
"[7] In the July 2001 issue of Guitar World, Dan Epstein wrote, "The sessions proved extremely relaxing for everyone except Iommi, who was left to oversee the production while the others sunned themselves on the beach."
[9] Compared to the band's earlier albums, the record's songs are more eclectic, complex and flowery, with studio effects and synthesisers appearing prominently.
[10] As Greg Pato of AllMusic describes: "The band was getting further and further from their original musical path, as they began experimenting with their trademark sludge-metal sound", citing the funky "All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" and the melodic, Bill Ward-sung "It's Alright" as examples.
[10] The prominence of guest keyboardist Gerald Woodroffe throughout the album was considered a "surprise left turn",[12] though Steven Rosen of Sounds considers his work on the album to be "supplemental in nature", adding that "the new synthesized wheezings are nice and so long as he remains in a back-up role there should be little problem with his being accepted by the Sabbath fans.
[15] With regard to Iommi being the only member determined to work on the album, Peter Watts of Uncut comments that Technical Ecstasy is "the sound of Tony Iommi being left to his own devices and getting pulled in several different directions at once", believing that he wished to eschew heavy metal for hard rock, while also "nodding at punk and soft rock" but still remaining "quintessentially Black Bloody Sabbath", with the resulting record combining aspects from all their earlier albums – including the drive of their earliest work and experimentation of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) – as well as a straight pop song with vocals by Ward.
Tony Iommi's autobiography Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath reveals that "Dirty Women" was about "all these hookers" Butler had seen around Florida.
"All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" is about "a transvestite who becomes President of the United States", Butler told biographer Mick Wall in 2013, "because America was such a misogynistic society at the time."
[8] Ward's drum tech Graham Wright and Osbourne's personal assistant David Tangye stated in their 2004 book How Black Was Our Sabbath that the problems between the two originated after a show the two bands performed earlier in Switzerland.
The band wrote a handful of songs with Walker, and performed an early version of what would become "Junior's Eyes" on the BBC programme Look Hear with him.
The album received mixed reviews, with Phil Alexander writing in 1998: "While today hardcore Sabs fans defend some of the bold steps taken on Technical Ecstasy, it was a confused offering which still hit Number 13 in the UK but limped into the US charts at 52."
In 2001, Guitar World was less kind, calling it perhaps the "least-loved effort of the original lineup" with the band "trying to stretch its sound in several different directions, none of them exceptionally successful".
It deemed "Rock 'N' Roll Doctor" "a bad Kiss imitation", while eschewing "It's Alright" as "a sub-par Paul McCartney-style pop ballad".
Greg Prato of AllMusic agrees: "it was not on par with Sabbath's exceptional first five releases", but praises "Dirty Women", the "funky" "All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" and the "raging opener" "Back Street Kids".
[11] In The Great Rock Discography (2006), Martin C. Strong bemoaned the album's "ill-advised experimentation" and believed it marked "the beginning of the end".
"[16] Writing in the Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995), Rob Michaels deemed Technical Ecstasy far inferior to the surrounding Sabbath records, adding: "While the album's aimless synthesized wankery is arguably technical, ecstasy comes only to those who consign its cover to permanent dope de-seeding detail.
[14] Hadusek believed Technical Ecstasty marked "where Black Sabbath changed, and not for the better", adding: "On one hand, the songs had become more complex, flowery, and aurally varied — nothing wrong there.