The Devil You Know - Black Sabbath

Again, I need to point out that this is marketed officially as the band "Heaven & Hell", but it's the stinkin Ronnie James Dio incarnation of the band under a different name. Fans don't see it that way - it's Black Sabbath, really (if not legally) - so that's how I'm referring to it. So here goes..

This is the first full studio album by Black Sabbath since 1995's Forbidden album with Tony Martin. It's the first studio album by this incarnation of Black Sabbath since 1992's Dehumanizer. 14 years since any album, and 17 for this version of the band. Man, it doesn't feel like Dehumanizer is 17 years old, but then again, neither does it feel like next year the Heaven & Hell album will be 30! Age issues aside, fans have waited a long time for this album to come out.

So, it was with some interest that the new album was received in April 2009 (although I didn't write this until October 2009, oddly enough). First off, the album art. I wasn't thrilled as a Christian with the album art. I do know that the art wasn't commissioned for the album as such, like many Sabbath covers before it, TDYK's cover was "found" by someone and then they bought the rights to use it. I could fortunately do without the harsh imagry. Still, I see it as an artistic depiction of what the Devil probably felt at the moment of Jesus' crucifixion. Speaking of the cover art, the usage of the numbers 25 & 41 on there made people wonder what it was. It's a reference to the bible passage, Matthew 25:41, which states "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.". These guys have reached the point in their careers where I thought they wouldn't need shock imagry like this anymore. At least there's the alternate cover, which was sold in Walmart only. You can see that image here, too.

The music is typical Ronnie James Dio era Black Sabbath music. It did, however, when I first listened to it sound a lot like latter day "Dio band" music. When it was new, I, and several others, felt it was a bit disappointing because of the fact that it had the "feel" of a Dio album. It felt for the most part to be a Dio album with Tony Iommi on it. However, as time went on, I mellowed on that opinion. I don't think it's the best of the four Dio era Black Sabbath studio albums, though. That's reserved for all time for the first one. But there's some great riffs in here. That's no surprise given it's Tony Iommi brandishing the axe on this record. Some of my favorite tracks here are Fear, Bible Black, Eating the Cannibals (even if the lyrics are silly), & Neverwhere.

Bible Black had one of those lines of lyrics that just "stick out" to me. There's a handful of lyrics that I really like by bands. One is Pink Floyd's "Tongue Tied & Twisted, just an Earthbound misfit, I". I had that same kind of lyric feel here with "He locks himself away and tastes the silence, Hungry for another bite of wrong". Not so much the meaning behind the lyrics, but the words themselves, the way they're constructed sounds good to me. Kind of hard to explain.

I've heard rumors that these guys are going to make another studio album sometime during 2010, which is impressive, as Ronnie James Dio will be 68 around then. The fact that he can do this still and do it well is impressive.

God bless Black Sabbath. The Christian in me feels they probably need it.