Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know (2009)^{Release ID: 7108}

Was it just a version of Black Sabbath or an actual separate entity altogether?  Would it have survived had we still had Ronnie James Dio with us?  With the line up consisting of all four members of Sabbath’s Mob Rules album from 1981, it seems a hard sell to think of Heaven & Hell as being anything other than Black Sabbath.  Around for only four years in total the band managed only one full-length release under the name Heaven & Hell with the rest of the discography being two live records and various singles.

As you would expect from such an array of established and legendary artists the self-titled album is monstrous and accomplished in equal parts.  It is the perfect incarnation of Black Sabbath with a superb vocalist (other than Ozzy) that held mainstream appeal as well as enough familiar gloom to appease the ardent followers of - what was then - the past forty years of one of heavy metal’s most recognised brands.

There was a brooding rumble to Iommi’s riffs that accentuated the vocals of Ronnie perfectly, with Geezer and Vinnie doing their usual superb job of supporting the whole sound with that solid rhythm and percussion section that gave the tracks real depth and weight.  The foursome maintained a consistent and solid approach to the songwriting and as such all ten tracks stay in the memory but there are some huge tracks in here that clearly outshine the others.  Bible Black, Double The Pain and Follow The Tears all play effortlessly in the brain regardless of how long it has been since the record itself last got a spin.

There is an element of things sounding a tad too familiar at times over the course of the record which does limit the amount of plays it gets over the average year but still, even if considered as nothing more than a fitting tribute to one of Sabbath’s strongest line ups, Heaven & Hell is a fine heavy metal record, rooted in the fabric of the genre I have spent most of my life listening to and as such remains a standout release in the varied history of one the most iconic bands in music history.