Verres Militares
The lyrics in Sabbatum (above cover) are straight translations of the Black Sabbath originals, according to producer Mihkel Raud. Latin scholars among you can judge for yourselves below. This song appears on Sabbatum as Verres Militares; the 1970s Black Sabbath version is War Pigs. 

War Pigs (original)
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death’s construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.

Verres Militares (Latin version)
Centuriones convenerunt,
sicut magi sacris nigris - 
mentes malae destructionis,
artifices omnes mortis. 
Campis corpora comburit. 
belli machina laborans.
Mors et lis homunculis 
deleverunt mentis vim 
Eheu, Deus

Venefici se abstrudunt nunc, 
qui bellum inceperunt.
Ipsi pugnam cur ineant?
Cogunt ire pauperes, vae!

Poena subit verribus,
qui per jocum bellant,
gentes tractant sicut pecudes
dum nigra venit hora, vae!

Nunc tenebris mundus horret.
Cum auditis flammae torrent,
verres non jam habent nervos
Dei manus trudit fervens 
Hora nigra Dei advenit
Supplicantes verres repunt
peccatores precantur
Satan ridet, laetatur

By Michael Tarm

Critics of Black Sabbath, a pioneer of hard rock and notorious for on-stage antics that included lead singer Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a live bat, might have described the band as downright medieval. 
       Now their music really is—medieval, that is—after an Estonian company released an album of Black Sabbath songs played by a quintet specializing in music from the Middle Ages and sung in the main literary language of the era, Latin.
       “People said we were crazy, sure,” producer Mihkel Raud, the main driving force behind the project, explained from his office in Tallinn. “But that’s part of the beauty of the thing.”
       The 12-track album—called Sabbatum, Latin for sabbath—includes Wheels of Confusion (Rotae Confusionis) and War Pigs (Verres Militares).
       The raucous, high-energy originals that could drive pubescent boys into a frenzy have, on this album, become slow, minimalist renditions that wouldn’t seem out of place at mass in the Sistine Chapel.
       Such sublime, contemplative music—accompanied by whispering harps and gently tapped frame drums—would seem to appeal more to classical aficionados than to your average headbanger.
       Either way, Raud figures he’s onto something big.
       “There’re 100,000 potential buyers: Sabbath and classical fans,” he said.
       Some 1,200 albums were sold in the first few months after its March release—mainly to U.S. buyers via the Internet. 
       Any sales over 10,000 would be a spectacular success for Raud’s tiny, two-employee Beg the Bug Records. In a local market where record sales over a few hundred is considered standard, 10,000-plus sales would make Sabbatum one of the best-selling Estonian-produced records ever.
       They might surpass that target if the publicity Sabbatum has generated recently outside Estonia is an indication. Raud said he’s been inundated with interview requests, including from the likes of Fox Television in the United States and Britain’s BBC radio. 
       Recent reviews in no less than The Los Angeles Times and London’s Sunday Times were favorable. 
       “You could be forgiven for dismissing this as a ridiculous novelty record,” gushed the Sunday Times’ Stewart Lee. “But (they’ve) fashioned the rude materials of the Black Sabbath songbook into an album that is deeply affecting, slightly distressing and utterly magical.”
       Unsurprisingly, die-hard metal fans appeared at once bemused and baffled. “Different” seemed to be their adjective of choice.
       “This album’s most definitely different,” Black Sabbath Online, an unofficial fan site, said in its review. “You’ll either love it or think it’s crap.” 

The 33-year-old Raud said he became smitten by Black Sabbath as a teenager in the 1980s when his father smuggled several of their albums into Estonia after a trip to Finland. (Communist authorities, not unlike most parents in the West, disparaged hard rock as lewd and corrupting; Soviet customs officials were instructed to confiscate any such albums at the border.) 
       Raud, who later founded his own acclaimed rock band, called Mr. Lawrence, said he dreamed for years about producing a tribute to his musical heroes and then suddenly brainstormed the idea of transporting their songs back 700 years. 
       “We went at it with the fantasy that these songs in Latin were actually the original versions and that Black Sabbath found and used them,” he said. “Usually cover albums try to add modernity to known music. We did it the other way round.”
       He insisted the Black Sabbath-medieval music link isn’t all that tenuous. 
       The still-active, 30-year-old group has long used symbols embraced in the Middle Ages, like crosses and fire, he said, and their lyrics echo medieval-era obsessions with death and black magic.
       “And if you take away the massive wall of sound from many Sabbath songs, what you have is pure 14th century music,” he said, pausing. 
       “Really?” challenged his interviewer.
       “Really,” said Raud.

The Estonian producer distinguished his project from the Finnish quartet Apocalyptica that gained worldwide fame by playing compositions of the hard-rock group Metallica on cellos. 
       “Apocalyptica’s great. But they play Metallica music the way Metallica plays it, with the same energy and anger, only with different instruments. But we’re doing a completely different interpretation of Black Sabbath,” he said.
       Raud said he hasn’t been in direct touch with members of Black Sabbath.
       But a representative of the band’s drummer, Bill Ward, did e-mail him a note saying Ward “liked the album and was floored by it,” according to Raud. 
       He hasn’t heard from lead singer Osbourne, whose reality TV show The Osbournes was recently nominated for an Emmy.
       Raud had to secure permission—not from Black Sabbath—but from music publishers who owned the rights to their songs; he has to pay a modest copyright fee for each CD made.
       Raud wooed the local early-music group Rondellus, whose previous two albums were of mainstream sacred music, to arrange and record the Black Sabbath tunes.
       He described members of the well-established ensemble as “open-minded” and “enthusiastic.” But he did forgo recording the most lyrically disturbing Black Sabbath songs in deference to the Estonian group’s long commitment to religious music.
       Explained Raud: “I felt that asking them to sing, ‘My name is Lucifer, please take my hand’ would have been too much.” 


You can hear audio samples on the album’s official site: www.sabbatum.com.
 
And for an account by the producers of Sabbatum on how to successfully sell small-label records via the Net, see www.MusicPromotionTips.com.
 
 
—Above illustration by Rein Lauks.

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