The Devil You Know

Product Information

Graff, Gary (25 July 2008). "Heaven & Hell 'Six Or Seven' Songs into New CD". Billboard . Retrieved 27 July 2008. The artwork was based off an image called “Satan”, by an artist from Norway named Per Oyvind Haagensen. Link here. Coordinator [Project Assistance] – Dutch Cramblitt, Jason Elzy, Kris Ahrend, Liz Erman, Lyn Fey, Mason Williams (2), Matthew Szerencse, Nikki Fair, Rich Mahan, Scott Webber, Sheryl Farber, Steven Gorman*, Vania Garcia a b Cohen, Jonathan (10 February 2009). "Heaven & Hell Feeling Devilish on New Album". Billboard . Retrieved 11 February 2009.

I’m going to echo the sentiment I have heard around here: not enough tempo variation. This was a problem for about the first two-to-three listens, but after I got to know the songs it’s not that big of a deal. Still, a little more variation could have boosted this in my eyes.

The album's US import was released in Japan on 24 April 2009, four days earlier than its original due date of 28 April. The Japan domestic pressing which is a SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) was released on 27 April. It was produced by the band and sound engineer Mike Exeter. [4] And yes, yes, yes. Dio. Of course, I'll talk about him. But we can't forget Vinny. He is a little bit under-appreciated in my opinion, but he is a solid drummer. He fills the spaces and remembers us constantly what's about drumming in heavy metal. He actually beat the irons. In "Fear", "Eating the Cannibals" and "Breaking into Heaven" he get his best. Second question, how good is it? Well, I don't think anyone really expected these guys to re-invent the wheel (despite this reviewer's smidgen of hope that they would do something surprising), and they pretty much didn't. I mean, after doing metal for so many years, there are only so many ways a band can take their musical limits, and Iommi, Dio, Butler and Appice are just doing what they do best. That's pretty admirable from my point. No sell-out, no pussifying their sound, just Heavy Metal as solid as a goddamned anvil. And considering the minds at work here, I don't think I have to say that this is just pure magic from a musical and songwriting standpoint. When dealing with these songs on an individual basis, comparisons to “Dehumanizer” could be made, along with a lot of other Dio and Sabbath albums that came out after said release, and even a few from before it. There isn’t really one era of their project that defines this album, but more of an even mix of them all, compressed into a modern yet not overdone production. Songs such as the creepily slow and dark “Atom And Evil” and the dissonant yet catchy “Fear” could be compared to material heard on “Cross Purposes”, “Strange Highways” and “Magica” and still not quite describe the character of the sound in its entirety. Likewise, faster songs such as “Eating The Cannibals” and “Neverwhere” carry a dueling “Dehumanizer” sense of darkness and a “Mob Rules” meets “Holy Diver” feeling of riff familiarity and majesty. Some other songs such as “Double The Pain” and “Follow The Tears” get so heavy on the bass and low end riffs that they cross over into sludge territory. There’s essentially a little something for every fan of every respective era of these musicians’ careers to grab onto.

Dio's vocals on this album are just some of the best and most aggressive sounding vocals he's ever put on an album. His vocals match the intensity that the album art for the album gives off as well as the album title itself. For being a couple years shy of seventy years old, Dio has still got it. In this album, Dio blends the perfect mixture of melody and aggression together to create some of the best vocals he's ever done on an album, if not the best. Dio's lyrical ability is also top notch and on this album he created some of the best lyrics he's ever written for any other album. The lyrics on this album are just great. I think it was a combination of two thoughts - the plot of the song itself and the thought of people who get lost in the addiction to hard drugs that alter their realities, thus getting themselves buried deeper and deeper underground...Heaven & Hell: The Devil You Know" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved 22 April 2018. Heaven & Hell's 'The Devil You Know' Lands in U.S. Top 10". Blabbermouth.net. Roadrunner Records. 6 May 2009 . Retrieved 6 May 2009. This time he'd be buried a bit deeper and he'd wake up in a way different reality. It was a similar universe, but some events happened differently than in his first universe, some things and people looked different.

One thing I will say about this album, is that I did not “get it” the first time around. And by that, I mean for the first couple of listens, I was kind of ambivalent towards it. Much the same way I was with Fused. However, after about four listens, I think this may be one of the highlights of the entire Sabbath band catalog and it's solo band offshoots. It's nice to hear Iommi play an acoustic guitar again, which he only has done sparingly for Sabbath songs like “Children of the Sea” and “Nightwing” (the latter is from Headless Cross). Butler is usually the band's word man but when Dio comes to town the elfin one gets the job. When one thinks of Dio images of dungeons, dragons, rainbows, etc but with Sabbath he tends to explore tales of good vs evil and moreso his belief that the life one lives now can be 'heaven or hell'. Songs like "Double The Pain", "Fear", "The Turn Of The Screw" and especially "Follow The Tears" are Dio's way of singing the 'blues', albeit with a fighting spirit.Other than the sinister riffs, another reason this record has such a dark vibe is the fact that it took Dio’s fantastic lyric writing and Sabbath’s general dark imagery to conjure images of demons, fallen angels, and sin, which work together to give the album quite a hellish mood and atmosphere. But despite the quite fantastical imagery, the album still has a very personal edge to it. It’s given to you from such a very real point of view, going in-depth about the emotions, that you can have some sort of relation to it. It also lets the songs that are more purely about emotion and don’t quite have the fantasy element blend right in as well. If there’s one take I have about the Sabbath discography that’s extremely unpopular, it’s that The Devil You Know under the Heaven & Hell title is the single most overrated album they ever did. Note: not the worst, but the most overrated. I’m obviously a huge fan of the band, I love Ronnie James with all my heart, and doom metal is something that I can dive into from time to time (obviously). But man, I really do not see the huge appeal in this. It’s not bad, but it really is not that great, and I have to wonder how much of it was hype-based on such a massive lineup reuniting in 2009. Tony Iommi 'Putting Riff Ideas Together' For Heaven and Hell Album". Blabbermouth.net. 28 January 2008. Archived from the original on 23 April 2008 . Retrieved 5 June 2008. me at all. "Breaking Into Heaven" has some eye rolling lyrics (at least for me) but it isn't too bad As a goof, I had a friend of mine who’s good with pixels, uh “fix” the cover art after it was announced. Here’s my “fixed” version. See if you can see what’s different. :)

There was a man, who would put on a white mask, cover his body in a magical glowing fluid and then he'd get himself buried alive, but only a couple of inches underground. Then, he'd wake up and get out of his grave in a slightly altered reality. He was enjoying it, so he wanted to do the same again. Oficjalna lista sprzedaży:: OLiS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 22 April 2018. This album is everything you could possibly want from a SABBATH album of the DIO era. The songs are catchy traditional doom metal and the production is modernly recorded but the fuzzed out metal sound makes these feel nice and dirty as well. DIO's vocals are as good as ever and the songs are very well written showing that the band really had some music makin' mojo left in them after years of mediocre albums apart from each other. The result of this reunion is more than just a nostalgic trip into the past, but this album succeeds in sounding very good in a modern sense as well being not just a carbon copy of their previous releases together.Offiziellecharts.de – Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 22 April 2018. generally very strong and memorable. I don't ask for more and a 4 star (80%) rating is fully deserved. You seriously wouldn’t know that this was the bands first album in, hell, how many years? They really are as tight as they were in the hey-day. Each member steps up to the plate and delivers with all their balls. I think Iommi gets MVP for this album though, because the riffs here are definitely on par with his old classics. My personal favourite is Double The Pain, but they’re all fair game. Being a big Dio fan, I was glad to hear that his angelic vocal chords are still in mint condition. The drums and bass are pretty standard, but shine here and there. Everyone had so much fun playing together that we didn't want it to end," says the group in a press release. "We started writing together and the songs started flowing like we never stopped. We wound up writing and recording an album that stands up to anything we've ever done. We're really proud of the music and excited for people to hear it."