{"id":5983,"date":"2009-04-28T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T00:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=5983"},"modified":"2013-07-20T12:07:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T12:07:57","slug":"album-review-heaven-and-hell-the-devil-you-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-heaven-and-hell-the-devil-you-know\/","title":{"rendered":"HEAVEN & HELL – The Devil You Know (2009) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

HEAVEN & HELL
The Devil You Know<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nRoadrunner (2009)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Heaven & Hell are sure holding what cards they have left very tightly. After the miserable commercial failure of the 1992 Dehumanizer<\/em> album, this Black Sabbath<\/a> line-up\u2019s first reunion, I really thought we had seen the last of the band. After a surprisingly popular run of shows, it seems the world was ready for a new Dio-era Black Sabbath record. While I appreciate the fact that they did not call this Black Sabbath, fans can expect very small doses of the mighty Sabbath here. For all intents and purposes this is a Dio album with a more famous backing band than usual. <\/p>\n

The Devil You Know opens with the downward spiraling guitars of Tony Iommi and the thundering rhythms of Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice, resurrecting the spirit of Black Sabbath in their heyday. The track, entitled \u2018Atom And Evil\u2019, soars as Ronnie James Dio\u2019s voice takes it to dark and evil sounding places. Dio\u2019s in great form, arguably turning in a career defining performance. At a minimum, his vocal work here stands toe to toe with Holy Diver<\/em> (1983) and Lock Up The Wolves<\/em> (1990) if not the original duo of Black Sabbath albums he fronted (1980\u2019s Heaven And Hell<\/em> and 1981\u2019s Mob Rules<\/em>). The aforementioned \u2018Atom And Evil\u2019 is a prime example, but he really doesn\u2019t have any weak performances here save for \u2018Rock And Roll Angel\u2019 which is poor all the way around. <\/p>\n

\u2018Follow The Tears\u2019 and \u2018Bible Black\u2019 are highlights here. The band sound really tight and these two songs in particular fall in line very well with the three recently recorded songs for the Black Sabbath – The Dio Years<\/em> compilation (2007). They have a similar dark and evil feel, but are heavier than most Black Sabbath songs. \u2018Breaking Into Heaven\u2019 is another glimpse of what might have been. It\u2019s very reminiscent of \u2018The Devil Cried\u2019 from the aforementioned compilation only with better lyrics. It also contains elements prevalent on Dehumanizer<\/em>, which wasn\u2019t a bad album when you consider that both Dio and Black Sabbath were at probably the lowest points in their legendary careers at the time.<\/p>\n

\u2018Eating The Cannibals\u2019 is the lone energetic number and it certainly leaves you scratching your head and asking why in the hell they didn\u2019t do more songs like this? They sound 20 years younger on this song than on the rest of the album. <\/p>\n

Overall, this album is enjoyable but easily relegated to the background. Like most Dio albums, everything is pristine and each element stays solidly in its place, never straying from the tradition or the expected. The only real surprise here was the lack of the trademark Black Sabbath sound that changed the world. Heaven & Hell play it plenty safe and I suppose there is no reason to think they\u2019d have done otherwise. While longtime fans of either band will be initially pleased, they\u2019ll soon find themselves digging out Mob Rules<\/em> or Holy Diver<\/em>. The Devil You Know<\/em> just doesn\u2019t have the staying power that the classics do. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEAVEN & HELLThe Devil You Know Roadrunner (2009)Rating: 8\/10 Heaven & Hell are sure holding what cards they have left very tightly. After the miserable commercial failure of the 1992 Dehumanizer album, this Black Sabbath line-up\u2019s first reunion, I really thought we had seen the last of the band. After a surprisingly popular run of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,293],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-heaven-hell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5983"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13144,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5983\/revisions\/13144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}