Hand Of Doom

This is the final installment in my recent series of Black Sabbath cover 7"s released by Hydrahead Records. However, just to keep things interesting, the record featured in this post isn't a 7" and also isn't on Hydrahead.

This is a test press for the Isis 'Sawblade' EP. The original release of this record came on clear vinyl only and was limited to 250 copies total. Back when this came out in 1999 I sent off the money for (in an envelope, pre-Paypal), but I never received the record. After a few weeks I phoned the label up and the dude told me he never received the money. Anyway, I finally got around to picking a copy up from 2018 in Double Decker Records whilst on my first trip to the US.

This test ended up coming from one of the people I met later on that same trip. It's on a label called Tortuga Records, and I got it from the dude who ran the label, who also co-ran Hydrahead for a few years.

So this EP features 4 songs, and one of them is a 'Hand Of Doom', which is a Black Sabbath cover. It clocks in at eight and a half minutes or so, which is about a minute and a half longer than the original. This song was originally intended to be released on the CD version of the 'In These Black Days' compilation, which was supposed to have all the songs from the 7"s plus a few extras, but it never actually got released. So I guess it's kinda cool that Isis put the song on this 12" else we may never have got to hear it at all.