No matter what grade any reviewer assigns this disc, The Devil You Know<\/i> has already secured its place in heavy metal\u2019s history by virtue of its being the final studio album to feature the legendary Ronnie James Dio at the mic. And to be sure, it is a fine epitaph for his career, buoyed by heavy, doom-laden guitar riffs from Tony Iommi, Dio\u2019s own trademark vocals, and a refreshingly energetic performance from longtime Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler. It seems all too fitting, in retrospect, that the album would close with a song entitled \u201cBreaking Into Heaven.\u201d <\/p>\n
Whether due to the pressures of a lawsuit from Ozzy Osbourne or an effort by the band to avoid being confined to playing \u201cParanoid\u201d and \u201cWar Pigs\u201d each night, Iommi, Dio, et al decided to record this album under the moniker of Heaven And Hell.\u00a0 But make no mistake about it:\u00a0 The Devil You Know <\/i>is a Black Sabbath album.\u00a0 The question is, \u201cWhere does it rank next to the earlier albums that featured Dio on vocal duties?\u201d.<\/p>\n
It seems a bit trite to say that a band saved its best for last.\u00a0 But in this case, Iommi and Dio have come damn close. Their debut effort, 1980\u2019s Heaven And Hell<\/i>, was a delightful piece of work with the loose-around-the-edges feel of a new lineup finding their legs. The follow-up, 1981\u2019s Mob Rules<\/i>, kept the trademark heaviness that listeners had come to associate with Sabbath mainman Tony Iommi, and successfully married it with a more mainstream sound in songs like \u201cTurn Up The Night.\u201d 1992\u2019s Dehumanizer<\/i> saw the band members feed off of a new crop of Sabbath-influenced groups such as Metallica, offering what was arguably their heaviest work to date.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Were I asked to rank them, I would say that The Devil You Know<\/i> is only behind Mob Rules<\/i> as far as the Dio-Sabbath albums go, in terms of quality and consistency. True, it is lacking a ballad or an \u2018epic\u2019 track along the lines of \u201cSign Of The Southern Cross.\u201d But at least three of its ten tracks deserve a spot among the best songs to come out of the Dio-Iommi partnership. \u201cFear\u201d is a heavy, sinister piece of work resembling some of the better tracks on Dio\u2019s own Strange Highways <\/i>album. \u201cBible Black,\u201d clocking in at over six minutes in length, offers plenty of room for Tony Iommi to showcase his guitar playing, and it\u2019s refreshing to hear Geezer\u2019s bass have such a prominent spot on a Sabbath record for a change. The best of the bunch is \u201cDouble The Pain.\u201d Give the band thirty seconds to noodle out an intro, and then Dio\u2019s voice kicks in with such power it resembles a riff in and of itself. The band locks into a real groove on this number, with each member getting to showcase their talents. <\/p>\n
If there is one shortcoming to the album, it has to be the sterile performance of drummer Vinny Appice. Whether you\u2019re listening to Iommi\u2019s blistering solo on the fast-paced \u201cEating The Cannibals\u201d or the great bridge to \u201cRock \u2018N\u2019 Roll Angel,\u201d you\u2019ll have Ronnie singing his heart out, Tony and Geezer just jamming away…and then there\u2019s Vinny, playing it safe and staying in the pocket. You can argue that a drummer\u2019s priority is to keep time, but Appice plays so by-the-numbers here that it\u2019s borderline distracting in spots. While this is the most polished of the Dio-Sabbath albums, it is also the one with the least variation between songs. True, these guys are in their early-to-mid \u201860s now, and can\u2019t be expected to crank out tunes like \u201cNeon Knights\u201d and \u201cDie Young\u201d to the same extent that they used to. But the overwhelming number of slow-to-mid-tempo songs on this disc makes you wonder if someone forgot to bring their walker to the studio.\u00a0 The sludgy \u201cFollow The Tears\u201d is arguably the greatest missed opportunity. Speed up the riffing in this one, and the band might\u2019ve had another fast-paced classic to go alongside \u201cTV Crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Complaints aside, The Devil You Know<\/i> is still a commendable, even outstanding piece of work.\u00a0 That these four veterans could come together (again) at this point in their careers, and record an album that dwarfs 90% of the contemporary metal acts out there is a testament to their lasting relevance in the genre.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":30444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8623],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42107","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-heaven-hell","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42107"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42107"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}