Do you like Black Sabbath? Do you like medieval shit? The answer to both questions is obviously a ‘yes’. You’re bound to love ‘Sabbatum’.
Sabbatum is an album by Estonian renaissance band Rondellus that was released in 2002. Ten years on, I bring this aural pleasure to your attention.
All the songs are sang in Latin and played on medieval instruments (fiddle, harp, lute etc). The actual idea for the Sabbath tribute album came from producer Mihkel Raud who played in a Black Sabbath tribute band when he was thirteen.
“I used to sing and play the guitar at the same time. I was kind of Ozzy and Tony Iommi in one person. So in a way Sabbatum is an extension of something I started in my early teens. However, this time around I decided to explore a totally different angle in Black Sabbath music.”
Mihkel doesn’t actually play in Rondellus, he just wanted to make this album so he asked them to do it. Rondellus formed in 1993 by brother-sister/husband-wife/both duo Maria and Robert Staak. They brought in some of their pals to play with them and here they are today.
The best thing about this album is that it doesn’t feature the shit songs like Paranoid; you just get sweet lute riffery of the likes of The Wizard and Behind The Wall of Sleep although you probably can’t tell because all the song names are in Latin.
A perfect soundtrack to painting Warhammer/playing World of Warcraft/reading A Song Of Fire And Ice
Download it from here, the tracklisting is:
01. Verres militares (War Pigs) [03:27]
02. Oculi Filioli (Junior’s Eyes) [05:33]
03. Funambulus domesticus (A National Acrobat) [06:13]
04. Symptoma Mundi (Symptom of the Universe) [04:44]
05. Post murum somnii (Behind the Wall of Sleep) [05:00]
06. Post aeternitatem (After Forever) [03:42]
07. Magus (The Wizard) [03:51]
08. Solitudo (Solitude) [03:50]
09. Rotae confusionis (Wheels of Confusion) [03:05]
10. Planetarum vagatio (Planet Caravan) [03:57]
11. Via gravis (A Hard Road) [05:20]
12. Architectus urbis caelestis (Spiral Architect) [04:52]
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