Black Thursday

If your idea of a happy new year involves "primitive musicianship, bad poetry, an obsessive fantasy world, crawling tempos, and overpowering volume," we have good news for you: Ozzy Osbourne and original Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward are reuniting for a full-scale world tour that will begin Dec. 31 in a U.S. city to be named later. (The above description of the band, by the way, comes from the All-Music Guide.)

The quartet reunited briefly last December for two sold-out shows in their hometown of Birmingham, England. (A live album with two new studio tracks, "Reunion," is due from Epic Records on Oct. 20.) This tour, though, will mark the first extended repartnering since Osbourne left Sabbath in 1979. Never the friend of critics, Black Sabbath is widely credited with influencing such '90s platinum metalists as Metallica and Soundgarden.

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