Secretly Canadian Announces Jason Molina’s ‘The Black Sabbath Covers’

Recorded in the Midwest in the late ’90s, the intimate takes on these songs serve as bittersweet artifacts of the late singer-songwriter, as well as an ode to Molina’s longtime love of metal. Here, he takes Black Sabbath’s songs and makes them singularly Molina, his own personal and artistic mythology looming large over visceral, brooding tracks.

Molina extracts Ozzy Osbourne‘s cooed vocals and transforms it into his signature high and lonesome sound, an eternal campfire howler on “Solitude,” from 1971’s Master of Reality. On “Snowblind,” taken from 1972’s Vol. 4, the influence of Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi on Molina’s catalogue of work suddenly becomes obvious. Side B of the 7″ features an etching of a black ram by longtime Molina album artwork artist, William Schaff.

In addition to the standalone physical and digital 7″, Secretly Canadian is also offering The Jason Molina Covers 7″ Bundle, comprised of both The Black Sabbath Covers and The Townes Van Zandt Covers 7″, which was originally released for Record Store Day 2016. The bundle also includes a baseball tee featuring the original ram head etching by artist William Schaff, as shown on the cover art.