I have a confession to make: Metal fan that I have always been, I’m not particularly a Black Sabbath fan. I know, I know: You’re all black-listing me right now.
See, the thing is, I’m not a particularly big Ozzy Osbourne fan. I tried, really, I did. I owned a lot of Ozzy stuff back in the day, listened to him a lot, even went to a concert, but ultimately just didn’t wind up worshiping at the throne of Ozzy and, therefore, Sabbath.
That’s not entirely true; I didn’t completely write the band off. In what is one of my bizarrely open-minded moves, I really loved the Tony Martin-fronted version of the band, especially Headless Cross.
And while I was aware of the Ronnie James Dio-fronted version of the band, I just never got around to checking them out. I moved on from being a metal die-hard for a while to other things, but in recent years have been slowly re-integrating a lot of older metal material.
What we’ve got here is five tracks from Heaven and Hell, four from Mob Rules, three from Dehumanizer, one from Live Evil, and three brand new songs that Dio wrote. So, finally, after all this time, the Dio-era Sabbath is finding a home in my collection.
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I’m one of those seemingly rare people who like Ozzy and Dio-era Sabbath equally. All three Dio albums, as well as the Heaven and Hell record from a few years ago, are fantastic. “Dehumanizer” is really an overlooked gem. Dio is clearly far and away the better singer, but from the Ozzy era, man, those Iommi riffs are what metal is all about.
It’s funny. When I wrote this, however many years ago, this was totally true, but I’ve grown an appreciation for the first five Ozzy Sabbath albums in that time. So hopefully I’ve redeemed myself with the true metal fans.