Unknown Soldier

Overview
When Dio joined Black Sabbath from Rainbow in 1979, Black Sabbath must’ve thought that they were now in the realm of gods, as Dio’s breathtaking vocals combined with the sheer majesty of Tony Iommi’s riffs, were like something out of a headbangers wet dream! Dio of course was very much on the top of his game after the stunning Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll with Rainbow (see review) whereas Black Sabbath now minus Ozzy of course had been down in the doldrums for a number of years now. Their fall from greatness had of course started with their seventh album Technical Ecstasy basically a pile of drivel that will test anyone and after that album Ozzy had baled out of the band and was temporarily replaced by Savoy Brown’s Dave Walker. The band had then started their eighth album Never Say Die and it was on the recording of that album that Ozzy had decided to return to the band (he probably wished he hadn't) and if anybody knows that album, it was even worse than the previous Technical Ecstasy and culminated in around 40 minutes of absolute boredom. After the album Ozzy had gone off again to embark on a solo career and the band were able to wipe the slate clean once again and start from afresh with a powerhouse vocalist like Dio in their corner. But things were far from being straightforward as drummer Bill Ward was going through personal issues (every band seemed to have a member like so) in fact Bill Ward has stated that he has no real memory of recording the album, as he was that far out of it! Also bassist Geezer Butler was going through a divorce, which is why eventual keyboardist Geoff Nicholls of Quartz was brought in initially on bass and he would be a long term band collaborator before becoming an official member several years later. In fact the bass playing on the album would be such a controversial aspect, as besides Geoff Nicholls playing on bass in rehersals , Dio himself had tinkered around on bass as well, but the biggest contributor on bass surely had to be Dio’s old mucker Craig Gruber who claimed to have played bass on every song and also to have helped to write the album, this was later denied by the band but in Tony Iommi’s recent autobiography, it’s claimed that Craig Gruber did in fact have a huge contribution on the album. When Geezer Butler finally returned, he just recorded the bass parts again for the album. Instead of an in-house production once again, much travelled producer/engineer Martin Birch would produce the album and the album’s cover with its heaven and hell theme, is supposedly all about the highs and lows of being world famous rock musicians. Bill Ward’s personal problems would come to a high during the Heaven and Hell tour and he would suddenly leave the band and drummer Vinny Appice would be brought in and Vinny Appice would also be the band’s permanent drummer for 1981’s Mob Rules. The album was a commercial smash for the band and was their third highest selling album ever after the previous Paranoid and Master of Reality.

Verdict
Heaven and Hell is one the most famous metal albums of its time and also one of the boldest, as the introduction of Dio on vocals was a major stylistic change for the band, meaning that the band had to accommodate his vocal might and release something contemporary as well. So if Ozzy had represented the old Black Sabbath, then Dio was the beginning of a new era for the band. Just hearing the opening track the soaring “Neon Knights” one of the fastest on the album would be enough to solidify this new approach, as Dio pounds his way through 4 glorious minutes. This is then followed by the glorious acoustic opening of “Children of the Sea” before the song beefs itself up and showcases the power of Dio, a real connoiseurs delight to listen to and was the first song written for the album. Overall the majority of the tracks are heavy and mid-tempo like the personable “Lady Evil” the easy going “Walk Away” and the slightly pacier “Wishing Well” but the most iconic of these mid-tempo tracks is surely the title track “Heaven and Hell” the showpiece track of the album and quite simply the crème de la crème of the album, even though “Lonely is the Word” pushes it close. “Die Young” like “Neon Knights” is one of the faster tracks on the album and also one of the few tracks that seems to feature fleetingly used keyboardist Geoff Nicholls, which is probably why he’s down as an additional musician, but I guess there were financial considerations here as well. Not all the album is what one could call contemporary, as album closer “Lonely is the Word” sees its middle and latter sections hark back to the glory days of 1970’s hard rock, where Tony Iommi does a Jimmy Page on guitar across the song. Most of the tracks are straightforward guitar led metal tracks with Dio singing right across Tony Iommi’s riffs, instead of Ozzy’s approach which had been to follow the riffs of Tony Iommi. In fact the album’s real strength is actually its basic guitar led approaches, that wave adios to the technical and diverse nonsense attempted by the band on their previous two studio albums. I've always felt that Black Sabbath as a band were never really comfortable going too far outside their basic root sound, but when they were good on their first six albums they could get away with doing it, but when they weren’t they really sucked. Heaven and Hell therefore was quite simply a return to a more basic approach but with a facelift and the band were very much reborn, in fact the album could’ve easily been called ‘Born Again’ sadly they would use that very same title in a couple of years for their worst album ever, but that’s a story for another day. Without getting into Ozzy vs Dio debate here, let’s just say that Dio is the better vocalist, as frontmen it’s a matter of personal taste, but Ozzy was Black Sabbath and along with Tony Iommi the spiritual conductor of heavy metal. So the pros and cons of the two cancel each other out in my opinion and for that reason I love both eras of the band equally, it’s just a shame though that Dio didn’t stick around longer. All the songs on the album are band efforts with Dio supposedly just writing the lyrics, but to my ears nearly all the songs sound like Dio songs, but I guess that’s down to his dominant singing. The pure majesty of Dio quite simply makes Heaven and Hell a glorious album and most people that really dig Dio usually love this album, but if you’re not overly enamoured by Dio’s vocals then Heaven and Hell may not hold the same appeal. Heaven and Hell would be one of two very high profile albums in 1980 that had brand new vocalists, the other being Back in Black by AC/DC, the difference was that AC/DC went for the same shoe size again, whereas Black Sabbath went for a different shoe size altogether.

Dio- Vocals
Tony Iommi- Guitar
Geezer Butler- Bass
Bill Ward- Drums
Geoff Nicholls- Keyboards

Production- Martin Birch

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