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Black Sabbath recorded a ton of material during the sessions for their 2013 album, 13—or at least, a lot more than what made it onto the final record. And unless you’re a serious Sabbath completionist, there’s a pretty good chance you haven’t heard all of it. The standard edition of 13 offered up eight tracks, but that wasn’t the whole sonic story. There were four additional songs scattered across various deluxe editions of the album. You can stream three of those bonus tracks today without much trouble. Though, if you want to hear the fourth bonus track, “Naivety in Black”, you’ll need to go hunt down a physical copy. It’s the only one that’s never been released digitally.

But let’s shift gears here for a second, because this video is not about 13. This is about The End EP, one of the more elusive releases in the Black Sabbath catalog. The End was a tour-exclusive CD that featured four additional tracks recorded during the 13 sessions. It was sold only at merch stands during Black Sabbath’s farewell trek in 2017, dubbed The End Tour. That’s why they called it The End EP.

The EP has never been released digitally or in any other format, and was never included as bonus tracks on any reissues, so it was pretty easy to miss The End EP if you weren’t really looking for it — or didn’t know it existed when it came out. The End was mixed and mastered by Mike Exeter, as opposed to 13, which was mixed by Andrew Scheps and Stephen Marcussen and mastered by Alan Douches.

Much like 13, The End featured Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk on drums, instead of founding Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, who left the band in 2012 due to contract disputes and whatever other drama you want to believe from that period of time that surfaced online. It did get pretty messy at one point.

On the topic of The End EP and how it came to be, Black Sabbath collectively stated on the packaging of the CD itself: “As we were finalizing plans for our final tour, The End, we all agreed it might be a fitting time to release this special, limited edition CD. The End consists of eight previously unreleased tracks—four songs that were recorded for our number one album, 13, that didn’t make it onto the final release, and four live songs recorded during our 2013 and 2014 world tour—with original cover artwork by legendary artist Shepard Fairey / Obey Giant. We are only making it available to our fans who attend shows on our final tour. Thank you for your years of loyalty and love.”

The End is pretty good. I won’t sit here and pretend like it’s this amazing, must-hunt-down piece of Black Sabbath musical history, but it’s got two decent cuts on it and two pretty damn good ones.

“Season of the Dead” kicks things off with a classically doomed Tony Iommi riff that practically oozes out of the speakers before settling into a lurching gallop that leaves massive craters in its wake. Just when you think it’s locked into a single slow-motion death march, the song hits a shift around the three-minute mark that incorporates some very Vol. 4-style tempo-change grooves. But that energy is short-lived, and the track eventually slumps back into its original, earth-flattening riff. If you’re chasing the doomier side of Black Sabbath, this track totally delivers.

Next up is “Cry All Night”, another slab of pure doom, and this time without that mid-song detour. What it lacks in variation, it makes up for in attitude — thanks to a particularly nasty, snarling, wah-drenched riff that dominates the mix. It’s easily one of the stronger cuts on The End, though I can see why it didn’t make the final cut for 13. It does drag on a little bit, and there’s not a ton of evolution throughout the song. If they trimmed maybe a minute or two and injected a little variation, this totally could have been a sleeper hit; or at the very least, included on 13. But as it stands, it’s still a worthy listen. It’s still a pretty good song.

“Take Me Home” shifts gears entirely, trading in dread for a more upbeat rock feel that really lets Geezer Butler’s bass playing shine. His slinky, winding lines wrap around the groove, and Iommi keeps things plenty interesting with his signature knack for throwing in some subtle twists into otherwise straightforward riffs and composition. It’s a pretty good track—right up until the nylon-string acoustic guitar solo hits out of nowhere right at the end. The band doesn’t tone down their dynamics or even tailor what they’re doing to support the solo. It just kind of happens, as the mix ducks the rest of the instruments out of the way. It doesn’t make a ton of sense. It really is just out of nowhere. It’s not hinted at. It doesn’t really fit into the song, and it just feels like a very strange misstep in an otherwise fluid and pretty good track.

And then finally, there’s “Isolated Man”, which unfortunately ends the EP on a bit of a flat note. It doesn’t do much to separate itself from the other songs here and comes off like an alternative, slightly worse version of the track “Loner” from 13. Ozzy’s vocals and the layered harmonies have this strange, almost Axl Rose quality to them — so much so that the whole song kind of feels a little bit like a hypothetical Guns N’ Roses tribute to Black Sabbath. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely the least essential track on this EP.

So here’s hoping, now that Black Sabbath has largely entered reissue mode, we’ll get a definitive version of 13 – one that pulls together all the songs from those recording sessions into a single, cohesive release. Because let’s face it, tracking down a physical copy of The End EP is pretty tough these days, if not just really expensive. Until that happens, we’re all stuck scouring Discogs and eBay trying not to pay three figures for a CD, or just enduring rough YouTube rips from someone who did buy the CD.

It’s not exactly a fitting fate for Black Sabbath’s final songs—but who knows what the future holds? Maybe we’ll get a reissue. I really hope we do.