• AllMyVinyl #125
• Band: Black Sabbath
• Album Title: Heaven and Hell
• Release Date: 18 Apr 1980
• Date purchased: N/A
• Location purchased: From record label
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 2
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | My Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

Bloody angels fast descending….

When I first got into Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio was already the established vocalist.  The change from Ozzy to Dio was a non entity to me.  My first Sabbath album was the next one (Mob Rules), so I discovered the Dio era backwards.   However you discovered it, the Dio era in the early 80’s was a marked departure of what Black Sabbath was in the 70’s.  Even into the latter part of the 70’s, Sabbath was already evolving.  The last two albums with Dio were uh, “different” in tone, showing a different direction.  Then we get to this album, and it’s like “is that even the same band”?  The music on here is a complete tonal shift.  Now granted, Ronnie James Dio & Ozzy Osbourne sound nothing alike – so that’s a huge part of it.  But even if you took the vocals out of this record, the music behind it doesn’t sound like anything the band had done before.  The three musicians here are the same as there was for the prior eight studio albums.  It’s not like Bill Ward, Geezer Butler, & Tony Iommi started playing something different.  Now granted, there was some turmoil doing the creation of this album which led to different voices at times during its creation (I’ll get to that later), but at its core, it’s the same three guys, so why does it sound SO different?  Was it just Dio?  Was it Martin Birch?  Was it a mix of them?  Craig Gruber, Geoff Nicholls?  Who the F knows?  What I do know is that it’s a fucking masterpiece.  There’ some who say this is the point the Black Sabbath ended.  Well, I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on that other than to say fuck that.  This is Black Sabbath, and is one of their best albums of all time.

Masterpieces don’t just grow on trees, there was some blood, sweat, and tears that went into making this.  It started life when Ozzy was still in the band.  There’s a few demos of a couple of songs lying around in the vaults with Ozzy on guide vocal tracks. It’s not the whole album – there’s no secret version of Heaven & Hell with Ozzy on all the tracks – he was only there for the earliest version.  From what I can gather it’s just like two songs, but we don’t know what they were.  I’ve seen apocryphal stories saying there’s versions of Heaven & Hell (the song) and Lady Evil with Oz, but I can’t prove any of that – so claims to what really exist should be taken with a grail of salt – unless Iommi lets us root around in the vaults for ourselves.   Given the story of how Dio joined the band and how he wrote the lyrics to Children of the Sea that first night, they must have had Children of the Sea in place musically already if they played the song for Dio to write lyrics for.  Beyond that I’ve never formally heard what actually exists with Oz fully.  But I know it’s not a full version of the album.  After Ozzy left/fired/whatever, they met Ronnie Dio at a party (after being recommended by Sharon Arden of all people), and they clicked immediately.   They continued work on the album, but fairly quickly after that, Geezer Butler left.  While it’s never formally been said what he was doing, it’s my impression he had to deal with the breakup of his first marriage and then his marriage to Gloria Rossi to whom he’s still married to today, 45 years later.   While he was gone, work continued on the album – they first brought in Geoff Nicholls, who Tony knew from Quartz to play bass.  During that time Geoff came up with the main bass line for the song Heaven & Hell, but it was decided they wanted a more established bass player, so they brought in Craig Gruber, who Ronnie had worked with in Rainbow. Gruber was there for a few months, and worked on several tracks.  Gruber made some claims when he was alive that he played the bass on the final album, but that was a bunch of crap.  In the end, Geezer returned, and all was brought back together.   They recorded one more song together at that point when they needed one, and the album was released.

Now as I said before, I wasn’t listening to the band when this was new, so I can’t speak to that first reaction of “Whoa – that’s not Ozzy”, I already knew about Dio when I first listened to this.  But I did buy my OG copy fairly early on in my Sabbath career.  After I was so blown away by Mob Rules in 1981, I then started acquiring the back catalog in no particular order.  Within two weeks I had bought everything, which would have included this. Back then it was cassette tapes for Black Sabbath for me mostly.  For some reason I didn’t buy Sabbath vinyl back then until Live Evil came out.  I bought everything on vinyl from Live Evil through Eternal Idol, but I never went backwards to buy any of the earlier things, including this album.  I do however, still have my original 1981 purchased cassette of this album to this day.  Over the years, I’ve got several other versions of this.  A late 80’s US Warner domestic release, the 1996 Castle Remaster, the 2010 2 CD Deluxe Edition, the version that was in the 2008 set “The Rules of Hell”.  I then finally got this on vinyl in March of 2021 when Rhino Records sent me a copy of their then new remaster of the album.  This album always had a sound that seemed to lend itself to vinyl, so I was glad to have it.  It’s what I’m listening to today.

A caveat on that – the 2021 Rhino vinyl version is two discs.  The second one has a few related tracks, some live stuff, I won’t be covering those, just the eight studio tracks that comprise the base album.  I did write about the other stuff back in 2021 for my Sabbath site, if you want to read more about that, you can over here.

Let’s get to some tunes.

Neon Knights – For those of you who have been reading my vinyl series as it goes, you’ll get this next part.  One of my favorite types of song is the 3-4 min fast paced song.  While I like a lot of the slower, sludge-y Sabbath songs, my preference is the faster paced relatively shorter song.  This one is the template for that.  For me a whole lot of other songs are compared in my mind to this track.  I’m speaking of things like Trashed, In For the Kill, The Shining, I Witness, TV Crimes, Ear in The Wall, The Mob Rules, you get the idea.  That being one of my favorite Sabbath songs started here with Neon Knights.  It’s 3:54 of absolute perfection to me.  I’ve also spoken about statement songs in my review, this is definitely one.  This is the first song out of the gate with Dio behind the mic, and it delivers.  Hard, fast, and to the point.  It doesn’t waste any time getting going, it gets right into it, with a simple Iommi riff that works perfectly for what they’re trying to do with this song.

It’s also the last song written for the album.  When Geezer Butler returned, this was a song that was created fully after that.  It’s kind of why I think it has a different sound than the rest of the album.  Not like it sounds like it belongs on a different album, just a bit of a different vibe.  Some of the earliest tracks were around when Oz was there, then a bunch of them were worked on with Nicholls/Gruber, but only this track was created by Iommi / Dio / Ward / Butler from scratch.  It’s unique in that regard on this album.

Love the lyrics, even though they’re kind of nonsensical.  “Bloody angels fast descending, moving on a never bending (ending?) line”…
Ride out, protectors of the realm / captains at the helm, sail across the sea of lights”   There’s a smokin Iommi solo here too.   It’s also a super smooth solo – it’s not like noise or grunge, it’s just Iommi throwing out some riffs, and it’s super pleasing to my ears.

I also was talking with my wife in-between writing the intro and starting the song here, and mentioned this was my album today.  I played Neon Knights on one of the Amazon Echo devices, and she instantly knew the song ,despite Black Sabbath not being her jam.  She said she remembered it well from WDVE in Pittsburgh in the 80’s…  “Sabbath.. on DVE!”

I’ve seen many a Sabbath vocalist do this live, but this OG version with Dio remains the gold standard for me for this kind of song.  In fact, counting the one I mentioned with my wife I listened to it three times just now.

Children of the Sea – This is one of those songs that everyone seems to love, and my hot take for this album will probably make people go “WTF”.  It’s that I don’t really care for this song.  Now before people start grabbing their pitchforks, it’s not like I think the song is particularly BAD or anything, it’s just not my favorite.  It’s one I’ve had on and found myself mentally tuning out.  I’ve never quite figured out why.  When I listened to the guys from the Deep Purple Podcast do this album, all three of them (Nate, John, & Ry) all gave it a 5 out of 5.  I on the other hand do not.  I’d probably give it a 3.5.  I don’t know what it is about this song.  As I listen to it today, I enjoy it well enough.  It’s got that slow Dio intro before it gets to the more powerful part of the song – that’s always good.  It’s got a simple beat that runs through it.  All the pieces are there as being something that should grab me and elevate me into that stratosphere one gets to with a song that hits all the right buttons.  But something about this doesn’t kick it into gear.

One thing I do like in here is the bass runs that appear in the middle of the song.  Knowing what I know about the creation of the album, I wonder if those are Geezer’s original bass ideas from the Ozzy era of the album, or it was Gruber’s work that Geezer re-recorded, or what.   I do like the instrumental bridge around 3:10 or so.  Iommi’s got some more really fluid guitar playing here – that part is probably my favorite.  I mean it’s Iommi – I don’t know what that man could do with a guitar that would get me not to like it.  I also like Dio’s vocal delivery with the lyrics “the sun is going black BLACK” – that was well done.

But as I said, the thing that the DPP guys talk about how how the song builds to something and then goes out with a bang for me means more “OK, time for Lady Evil” than a reflection on a great song just completed.   The thing is when I saw Sabbath with Dio they ALWAYS played this live – I used it as time for a bathroom run on more than one instance.

I still want to hear what Ozzy’s demo vocals are like on this song.

Lady Evil – I remember when I first heard this song, I was much younger and used to think songs were more literal, so I wondered who they knew who pissed ’em off that they’d write a song about some individual woman like this.  hahaha.   In some ways it’s kind of like Neon Knights.  It’s a faster paced song, but it doesn’t get the attention that that one does.  While it’s on one of the best albums there is by Black Sabbath, if you ask someone to name a couple of songs off this album, rarely do you hear people name Lady Evil.  That’s a shame, as it’s a really good song.

Starts off with a nice bass riff – something that’s always welcome.  The overall vibe has some really nice accents by Tony scattered through the song in addition to his regular playing.  It’s nice to get multiple different guitar sounds from him in a single song.  The guitar solo here kind of reminds me a bit of something you’d hear on the Sabotage album in terms of the tone of the guitar.  It’s a nice throwback sound, IMO.

This one comes together for me quite well.   The lyrics, the delivery, Tony’s guitar sound and of course I already mentioned Geezer.  Can’t forget Bill who drives the whole song with his steady beat.  Great song that I wish more people talked about – it’s good stuff.

I’m also fairly sure this song has never been played live?

Heaven and Hell – Well, if you know anything from this album, it’s likely this track.  It’s one of their most popular tracks.  It’s one of the earlier tracks the band worked on with Dio, but it came together after Geezer had left.  This was borne out in an interview I heard with Geezer where he said that had they come up with this track when he was in the band, it would have a different bass line, as he thinks it’s a bit too “simple”.  I mean he’s not wrong.  This bass line originated with Geoff Nicholls, and was one of the first things (the first?) he wrote for Black Sabbath.  He’s an uncredited gem in the Sabbath catalog, but out of the gate he comes up with something this memorable is a testament to the late Mr. Nicholls.

In fact, in Jan 2021 a demo recording of this song surfaced with Nicholls playing bass.  It was quickly withdrawn from the source (as the release apparently pissed off Iommi), but copies of course were made the second it showed up online.  If you want to check that version out you can do so here.  The band on that version is Dio (v), Iommi (g), Nicholls (b), Ward (d).  This version also shows off more of Bill Ward’s skill, as there’s more raw unpolished drum fills here.  Not to mention some previously unknown guitar noodling by Tony.

But the finished song is damn good too.  It of course has months of polish behind it.  The bulk of it is the slower (but not SLOW) part that’s mostly driven by that bass line that you hear a LOT in this song.   That bass part runs through all the different parts of the song early on – quiet bits, slightly louder bits – even the kind of etherial sound that kicks in around 3:25 in the song.  It’s always there.  That middle part is really cool as it has Iommi’s guitar and Bill’s drum fills playing with the same bass beat that just keeps going and going.  I have to imagine as the bassist, it is kind of boring to play as it’s mostly the same note parts over and over again.  But its simplicity is what makes it work because all the other parts of the song are held together by that simple beat that runs through the whole damn thing.  Once we get past the etherial part is where it all changes.  We get to the fast part that comprises the last few minutes of the song, and to nobody’s surprise, Iommi’s guitar bridge works perfectly between the different styles of the song (hello Mr. time change!).

The faster part that starts around 4:20 and introduces a new bass riff, and the band all playing together with some soaring vocals by Dio contains the best lyrics of the song – possibly some of the best individual lyrics of any Black Sabbath.

The world is full of Kings and Queens
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
It’s Heaven and Hell

There’s been a lot of songs where you get a slower part sung by Dio and you get hit in the face with the change into the faster part – but for this one, it takes way longer to build to the faster bit.   The song also ends with an almost full minute long (acoustic?) guitar part by Tony which sounds right in line with something like Fluff, or Laguna Sunrise or something along those lines.  Specatular track.

One thing I’d be remiss in mentioning is the live version .  When Sabbath did this live (and Dio himself too I think ), they’d have this extra  verse they do on live shows that comes in the middle.  I always wondered about this one – it started pretty early on, so I don’t now if this was something they intended to record but didn’t, if it was something that WAS recorded, or cut out to make the song shorter, or something that was created solely for the concert setting.  It’s a verse with these lyrics..

“Then a big black shape looked up at me
Said I know where you ought to be
Come with me and I’ll give you desire
First you gotta burn burn burn in fire”

There’s more, but you get the idea.  When I saw them do that live in 2008 from the side of the stage, I had a cool POV for that moment, check this picture I took.

Heaven & Hell is a killer track, and live they use it for extended soloing – the time I saw them in 2007 on the “Heaven & Hell” tour, the version of this song was extended out to be 16:57 long from its original studio length of 6:58.  The Dio band always played this live, and Black Sabbath with all their other lineup variants and singers continued to perform this song (at least until Ozzy returned), so it was definitely a top track for the band over time.

Wishing Well – Side 2 starts off with another song that generally never gets mentioned.  Wishing Well is one of those tracks you listen to go and go “that’s really good” and then never think about it afterwards.  I’m guilty of that myself, to be honest.  It’s got some of the better drum fills by Bill Ward on the album, too.

Tony’s got some mini solos scattered through the song too.   That’s a nice thing – the part of the song traditionally set aside for a guitar solo happens here too, but the smaller bits earlier in the song are a nice accent for sure.

I particularly love the middle bit that starts with the lyrics “Time is a never ending journey – love is a never ending smile” (around 1:40).  It goes off into something a bit more etherial where you can almost hear individual instruments on their own even while the rest of the band is playing.  it’s mixed well.  Love the sound with the vocals saying “dream on” mixed with Geezer’s bass, the nice fluid guitar work – this song really should get more attention.

In fact, right now I enjoyed this far more than my recall of it from the past says it was.  One thing I did like about this song, and it’s an odd take is that this song hard ends.  I far prefer songs that hard end vs fade out to extend the time.  If your song is done, it’s done, end it.  I liked the way this song ends.

“Someday, some way, you’ll feel the things I say”

Die Young – Another song that most people tend to know from this album.   This one had another claim from Craig Gruber on this track.  He claims he brought the track “fully formed” with him as a leftover track from his Rainbow days.  I never could get any proof of that one way or the other.  I do know the song was worked on by Sabbath during his time in the band, but the claim that the song was 100% his I find a bit unlikely.

Whatever the reality of that, what can’t be denied is how awesome this song is.  I’ve used the word fluid a few times already in this review, but man that song applies in spades here.  It starts off with a quiet sounding keyboard intro, something generally not used (but not unheard of) in Sabbath catalog.  Iommi’s guitar slowly joins the mix.  What we get a really slow, meandering (fluid?) guitar opening that leads into the full band, but not before almost a full minute of intro, it’s a great way to start.  Dio himself doesn’t join in until 1:07 of the song.  This is one of the first songs I can recall playing air guitar to actually.  Love Tony’s work in this track.  There’s in your face guitar work, more restrained stuff, some high pitched notes – the range is very good here.   It also showcases Dio’s range, as if any proof needed to be given of that man’s command of his vocal cords.

When it gets to the middle part, it’s my favorite part go the song.  About 2:05 it goes slow again, and we get the quiet Dio singing with mostly just Geezer’s bass and some light restrained guitar work by Tony going on.  It leads into the lyrics “Die Young – someone stopped the flame”, and we get a VERY VERY cool bit with the full band that I almost don’t even know how to describe.  it’s all the instrumental bit between “stopped the flame” and when the vocals start again in the final verse.  Some of my favorite Dio era music right there in that bit between 2:33 and 3:03 – that’s 30 seconds of Black Sabbath musical perfection jammed in the middle of this already great track anyway.   Iommi’s outro guitar work is extremely good too.

FUCK this is a great song.

Walk Away – Now as we move into the last two songs of the album, we get a couple more that are also generally under appreciated.  Walk Away starts with a nice clean guitar riff, which hasn’t always been the vase.  The bass line in this track seems to be mixed a little higher than usual, and also feels like one that Geezer didn’t come up with either, it feels more simple than the stuff Geezer would write.

This is one of those songs that I don’t have a ton of words about – not due to the quality of the song, or my inability to write, but more a case of this is one of those songs that when I listen to it, I just let it take me over.  I enjoy this song in a way that I don’t with the others.  It’s one of those “wash over you” songs, where you listen, enjoy it, and then when you’re done, you find yourself at a loss for words – that’s where I am with Walk Away.  Sitting at my office desk with the track on, it just is one that I “feel” and not just listen to.

ESPECIALLY the part from 2:46 onwards.  Iommi’s guitar mixed in the way it is here sets the tone for my mind – that’s got to be down to Martin Birch.

Lyrically it feels to be in line with Lady Evil – feels like its born out of a negative experience with some woman somewhere?

Lonely is the Word – The album closes out with this, a much slower track than usual.  I mean it’s not like Fluff or anything like that, but the overall tone is slower.  It’s not a Volume 4 piece of slow sludge mind you – it’s just got a more simple feel to it.   It feels well paired with Walk Away musically – I always felt the two of them went together well.

This also has a bit of that “wash over you feel” I mentioned in the last song, but this one I don’t feel as disconnected from.  It has some of the slower guitar playing from Tony on the album – an extremely fluid sound for sure (there’s that word again).

In some ways it reminds me a bit of “Over and Over” from the Mob Rules album, in the way that the bass and drums are there, and the song ends on some Iommi guitar playing that feels more mixed up front than the rest of the song.  That part starts in the middle before the final verse.  When Dio rejoins the song, it’s for a small part before he bows out completely leaving the rest of the song to Tony’s guitar as the main focus.  It’s a great way to end the album.  Not like something like Kiss of Death from Forbidden or “I Go Insane” from Fused, or even the title track from Eternal Idol.  Those are all great album closers.  But this one kind of has a “sail off into the sunset” feel to its sound as it plays out.   I’m normally not a fan of fadeouts in songs, but it works here.  Works really well actually.

It’s another underrated song for damn sure – when was the last time you heard anyone else go “Hey, let’s play Lonely is the Word?”

As you can probably figure from the mountain of words I wrote this morning, I really like this album.  It’s a stellar album in the band’s catalog.   It was a complete change of direction for Black Sabbath.  Had they tried make this album with Ozzy properly, I suspect it wouldn’t have ended well, things would have been different perhaps Sabbath could have disbanded here.  Who knows?   The entrance of Dio to the band was a complete rebirth.  1980 was a great year for metal, and this entry by Black Sabbath helps lead the pack.  It’s really REALLY weird now to say this album is FOURTY FIVE years old (well, it will be in a couple of weeks).  It doesn’t sound dated at all, and still has a sonic quality to it that makes it work really damn well.  Thanks to the lads for this masterpiece – I enjoyed listening to it again today for probably about the 5,000th time.

A few extra bits I wanted to mention before I sign off.  The album’s cover is itself its own story.  The art was done by a man by the name of Lynn Curlee.  He’s only done one other album cover art – that’s “Agents of Fortune” by Blue Oyster Cult.  But the two he’s done have been bangers.  Back in 2008, I was honored to have interviewed him for my Black Sabbath site where he talks a bit about his thoughts on his art being resurrected so much for the 2007 Heaven & Hell band/tour.   That interview is still on my website if you’d like to take a look.  The cover is based off an old photograph, and Lynn’s version is called “Smoking Angels”.

Finally, further up I mentioned that demo recording of the title track that turned up in 2021.  That wasn’t the only thing that turned up then.  At he same time the Nicholls estate released a track called “Slapback” which was a demo that was made EXTREMELY early on in the process.  So much so that the bass on that song was played by Ronnie himself – even Geoff Nicholls wasn’t brought in yet after Geezer’s departure.  It’s obvious why it wasn’t used on the album – much like the unused track “The Fallen” off Born Again – it’s fair enough song, but doesn’t fit the vibe of the rest of the album.  Tony Iommi was apparently really pissed off this got released, but like anything uploaded to the internet, even if you pull the source, there’s hundreds of people who have made copies, so the song is still available if you look around a bit.