I thought Black Sabbath was over. We all did. Ozzy left or was kicked out. He had his own thing, which I adored. Black Sabbath was supposed to go in to that good night and disappear. The architects of metal were bloated and sad and devoid of ingenuity.
How wrong were we?
In 1980, along with Ozzy’s solo record and AC/DC’s seminal work “Back in Black”, Sabbath hired former Rainbow lead singer (See how it all comes together?) Ronnie James Dio and put out Heaven and Hell.
It’s easily their best work in ages. It ranks up there with Paranoid. It’s great.
The driving, pounding turbo engine of “Neon Nights”, the slog-metal of “Children of the Sea”and the remarkably ominous title track raise this record to a place I had long consigned to either history or a new generation of metal-heads.
Heaven and Hell is a lean piece of plastic. A great example is “Die Young” which is like a car crash where the driver, bleeding, head smashed against the steering wheel, finds his way out of the car and straggles out of the car, his shoulder dislocated, his arm hanging like a duck in the window of a chinese restaurant, gets his bearings, and races away from the scene to parts unknown.
It’s exceptional. And Iommi transforms himself into something elegant and stratospheric. Perhaps he’s influenced by the likes of Eddie Van Halen and the new guitar gods. As it should be, those guitar heroes are all students of his. It’s fitting that he become the student once more.
H&H isn’t a “return to form”. We wouldn’t want that. The metal of the early factory town days was infused with psychedelia, LSD and Boris Karloff movies. This is the 80s. Things move a lot faster. This is cocaine metal. Metallica is nipping at the heels and this album is a deep breath by the grandparents who refuse to go gently.
Grade: A+
ASIde: Neon Nights, Children of the Sea, Heaven and Hell
BlindSide: Wishing Well, Die Young
