The new Heaven And Hell album "The Devil You Know" is very enjoyable but it takes a wee bit of time to allow it to sink in. These men (Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Vinny Appice and you guessed it..Ronnie James Dio) have crafted a very good recording that shows the world that maybe your elders do know what is best. Who would have thought that they still had so much gas in the tank? The album closer "Breaking Into Heaven" lumbers forth with some stomping downtrodden doomy effect. Mighty tasty. In fact, there is only one uptempo tune on the whole thing. The rest is slow and ponderous and not at all upbeat. The riffs are good and infectious, Dio pleads, begs and scowls throughout the admittedly hokey yet fun lyrics. Ronnie james Dio is fucking in his mid to late sixties!!! Fuck the Rolling Stones, Heaven And Hell are the new elder vanguard. I would also like to congratulate myself on not shitting on Ozzy in all of this. And finally, just to repeat myself: most heavy metal stinks.
I approve.
RODAN.
I have been re-discovering bands like SLINT and RODAN lately. Along with BITCH MAGNET, BASTRO and the first DON CABELLERO album I have been amazed to find out just how well all of this stuff really holds up. I would like to give a special thanks to RODAN, whose "Rusty" album might be the single best album to come out by a band who were only around long enough to have one album out. Then they all went into other bands that I have never heard of because I am old. It almost pisses me off. I even made a cartoon about SLINT and their influence, and you can read it below after this paragraph. It was a interesting time now that I look back on it, because all of these bands were truly doing smart and creative stuff, all logical extensions of the post whatever world that we now live in. And in a world where pop punk, grunge and alt country have already exploded and gone, this stuff couldn't help but that stand out that much more.
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