Best Black Sabbath ‘Headless Cross’ Song – Readers Poll

Tony Iommi’s songwriting momentum, which sparked 1987's 'The Eternal Idol,' carried over to Black Sabbath's 1989 offering, ‘Headless Cross.’ The relatively stable lineup didn’t hurt either.

Even though session bassist Laurence Cottle plays on the album, Whitesnake alum Neil Murray joined the band on tour. Iommi, Cozy Powell (former drummer for the Jeff Beck Group and Rainbow, among others) and singer Tony Martin made for a rock-solid Sabbath.

And while haters argued that Martin occasionally sounded like a Ronnie James Dio clone (one of the things that kept U.S. audiences away from the record and forced a tour to be canceled), the young singer, like his veteran bandmates, came off like a pro throughout the record.

Streamlined songs like ‘Devil & Daughter’ and ‘Black Moon’ balance perfectly with malevolent doom anthems like the title track and ‘Kill in the Spirit World,’ and the sublime half-acoustic, half-macabre highlight ‘Nightwing.’