| Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know |
| Written by Liu |
| Saturday, 02 May 2009 19:39 |
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Rhino (Out of respect for Dio, Iommi and Geezer's wishes and for the possibility of getting a cease-and-desist order from Sharon Osbourne, in this review I'm not going to argue that this should have been released under the BLACK SABBATH name. But it totally should.) Heaven And Hell. What more is there to say? The band that at one time was referred to as MKII Black Sabbath (well technically MKIII but whatever, there were so many line-up changes during the 80's that by the time they reunited with Ozzy they were probably on MKXXXIV). Whatever the reason for the name change, whether personal or legal, is irrelevant. The important bit is that the key members of Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler are back together and are creating new music. Nothing can possibly go wrong, right? Before I go any further, let me preface this by saying that The Devil You Know is a good album. Bear this in mind before you send me angry emails demanding to know why I'm not kissing the band's ass and hailing this as an instant classic that stands side by side with Sabbath's greatest triumphs. The Devil You Know is a slow album. I need to get that out of the way. Of the ten songs only two are up-tempo. The rest of the songs are of the doom-paced, take-their-sweet-time variety. I don't necessarily have any problem with slower paced songs, but The Devil You Know is extremely unbalanced in this regard. Both Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules picked up the pace considerably and its generally considered one of the strong points to Dio's entry to the band. Instead of following the example set by those two albums, The Devil You Know falls more in line with Dio's first return record with the band, Dehumanizer. I think that is a good album overall, but following the pedigree set by the first two Dio-fronted albums (let alone the magnificent albums fronted by Tony Martin), Dehumanizer just comes short. There's really no reason why they couldn't had included a few more up-tempo songs on The Devil You Know. As a result the album feels much longer than it is. There are so many instances where one wants the band to pick up the pace and do something interesting. (And to all of you revisionist music scholars out there, I'm only going to say this once: BLACK SABBATH IS NOT A DOOM METAL BAND. Just because they accidentally created a new musical genre with the writing of their eponymous song does not mean they were a part of it. What they offered in their music was always so much more than what the Doom Metal genre usually is capable of, so those of you wishing to soil Sabbath's good name by this blasphemous association can shove it.) Despite the staleness of some of the songs, you will be coming back for more. Iommi's playing alone will ensure this. His signature riffing is the album's greatest asset and elevate otherwise forgettable songs like Fear, Rock And Roll Angel and The Turn Of The Screw into headbang worthy tunes. Its been too long since he's written solid riffs like this and the album can be sold on this alone. Dio isn't slacking around either, giving his most inspired performance on record in years. His lyric writing is of his normal variety, concerning himself more on his vocal delivery than on the actual words. The third element to this is bass god Geezer Butler, who for some reason sounds much more subdued than one normally expects from him. His bass isn't all that prominent in the mix and comes across as very mild. That brings me to the fourth and final member of the band, Vinny Appice. I see no point in pulling any punches at this stage and I won't. Vinny is fucking terrible. I don't know what the hell this man is doing with this group of talented musicians. His drum playing sickeningly plods all over the place. His drum fills are lazier than Lars Ulrich's. There's almost no variation in how he drums, very one-note and boring. He phones in his performance by using stringed dixie cups. In fact, I have the burning suspicion that these songs would have come across much stronger if they got someone who actually had a sliver of talent behind the kit. The band needed to reanimate Cozy Powell's corpse for this one. Dear Dio does this guy suck! I suspect Iommi owes him money or something. Despite some misgivings, The Devil You Know is still a big deal. You just aren't gonna get songs that sound like this from a bunch of 20 year olds playing in bands with full sentences for names. Even though some of these guys are well past their 60's, Heaven And Hell sure have proven that rock and roll doesn't have an age limit. Now if only they were calling this by its real name... *reads memo* Umm...nevermind. 01. Atom And Evil 02. Fear 03. Bible Black 04. Double The Pain 05. Rock And Roll Angel 06. The Turn Of The Screw 07. Eating The Cannibals 08. Follow The Tears 09. Neverwhere 10. Breaking Into Heaven Score: 7/10 |
| Last Updated on Sunday, 03 May 2009 14:30 |