Black Sabbath "The Sabbath Stones (Japan, I.R.S. Records, TOCP-8881)"

The Sabbath Stones (1996) is a compilation album of Black Sabbath songs taken from albums ranging from 1983's Born Again to 1995's Forbidden. It was never formally released in the US or Canada, and was the last album to be released by Black Sabbath with I.R.S. Records.

It was created solely to fulfill Tony Iommi's contract with I.R.S. It included a short story about Black Sabbath which had some mistakes. Another mistake was the misspelling of Vinny Appice's name on the front cover of the CD as "Vinnie", a mistake which also appeared on both the Mob Rules and Live Evil sleeves.

The era covered by the album is considered to be the "third era" of Black Sabbath. After the initial line-up with Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward broke up the band's reformation with Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice formed the second era. Thereafter, line-ups were far less stable, with band members repeatedly coming and going, with many returning. This period is generally the least popular among Black Sabbath fans without Ozzy or Dio on vocals, although Dio's vocals are featured on the Dehumanizer album, with "TV Crimes" being taken from that album.

‘Loser Gets It All’, according to the liner notes in the album, was supposedly one of Tony Iommi’s favorite tracks to both perform and write. It was recorded during the Forbidden sessions, but only appeared on the Japanese version of the album.

Track listing

1. "Headless Cross" Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell, Tony Martin Headless Cross (1989) 6:32
2. "When Death Calls" Iommi, Powell, Geoff Nicholls, Martin, Brian May Headless Cross 6:57
3. "Devil & Daughter" Iommi, Powell, Martin Headless Cross 4:43
4. "The Sabbath Stones" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Neil Murray Tyr (1990) 6:48
5. "The Battle of Tyr" (Instrumental) Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Murray Tyr 1:08
6. "Odin's Court" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Murray Tyr 2:42
7. "Valhalla" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Murray Tyr 4:41
8. "TV Crimes" Ronnie James Dio, Iommi, Geezer Butler Dehumanizer (1992) 4:01
9. "Virtual Death" Iommi, Butler, Martin Cross Purposes (1994) 5:46
10. "Evil Eye" Iommi, Butler, Martin, Eddie Van Halen Cross Purposes 5:57
11. "Kiss of Death" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Murray Forbidden (1995) 6:09
12. "Guilty as Hell" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Murray Forbidden 3:30
13. "Loser Gets It All" Iommi, Powell, Nicholls, Martin, Murray Japanese issue of Forbidden 2:57
14. "Disturbing the Priest" Iommi, Butler, Bill Ward, Ian Gillan Born Again (1983) 5:49
15. "Heart Like a Wheel" Iommi, Glenn Hughes, Nicholls, Jeff Glixman Seventh Star (1986) 6:37
16. "The Shining" Iommi, Bob Daisley, Ray Gillen The Eternal Idol (1987) 5:55

Time:  01:20:12

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 are taken from Headless Cross.

Tracks 4, 5, 6 and 7 are taken from Tyr.

Track 8 is taken from Dehumanizer.

Tracks 9 and 10 are taken from Cross Purposes.

Tracks 11, 12 and 13 are taken from Forbidden.

Track 14 is taken from Born Again.

Track 15 is taken from Seventh Star.

Track 16 is taken from Eternal Idol.

On the Headless Cross album, the first track is “The Gates of Hell”, which is an instrumental leading to the track “Headless Cross”. On this compilation, the last few seconds of “The Gates of Hell” are used here as an intro, but are not segregated out into their own track (or listed here, either).