The deal is that some UK journalist interviewed Tony Iommi, who didn't rule out a Sabbath reunion. This guy apparently loosely interpreted that, and blew it up into a story about a new tour and album. Tony posted a comment about it at his website, and apologized to Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. By the way, one thing that Tony definitely is doing is releasing his memoirs, Iron Man, which comes out in November.
A couple of years ago, I had the honor of writing liner notes for The Black Box, which compiled all of the albums from the Ozzy era. I interviewed all four members. At the time, the band had done a few reunion tours, but they weren't sure if they'd do any more (they did a few more tours since then). But Geezer told me that if the band never performed again, and never recorded another note, he was OK with it. He was glad they were all friends again, and that they had done some pretty incredible reunion shows. I have to say, I'm with Geezer on this one.
They did a lot of tours since reuniting in 1997, and haven't recorded much. I think there's a reason for that: when Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality, Volume 4, Sabotage and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are what you are measuring new music against, it's gonna be awfully hard to live up to that. So what's the point? All good things must come to an end - and to me, the story of Sabbath ended on a great note. The guys are friends, they did do some great concerts, they all lived to see their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As a huge fan of Sabbath, I'm cool with that.
On the other hand, Ozzy sounded great the last time I saw him in concert. So maybe one more Sabbath tour...
