Black Sabbath
The Dio Years

THE REVIEW

100 million dollar question: DID WE REALLY NEED IT!?

 I must say that I adore Ronnie James Dio, who is a singer of great charisma as well as an extraordinary poet, and Antonino Iommi remains one of the greatest living guitarists, this pointless anthology is nothing more than yet another pathetic attempt to cash in on the name Black Sabbath, and Bill Ward was absolutely right to disassociate himself from this initiative. If only it had been done properly, I say! The value of songs like the epic Neon Knights, the super cool Lady Evil, the monstrous Heaven And Hell, the beautiful Die Young and the poetic Lonely Is The Word is unquestionable, they are the best, the creme de la creme of that absolute masterpiece called Heaven And Hell, released in 1980, which represents one of the most exciting chapters in the saga of the Sabs. The troubles begin  immediately after: Mob Rules is a great album, surely underrated, but the 4 songs included in this best of certainly do not encourage you to get it: the opener Turn In The Night is super cool, embellished with a vaguely punk riff, Falling Off The Edge Of The World is also very beautiful, a musical rendition of one of the best lyrics by our Italian-American elf, but frankly Voodoo and The Mob Rules are really weak and dull, it's unforgivable that they were chosen over two masterpieces like Country Girl and Over And Over, not to mention The Sign Of The Southern Cross!! Our good collection also contains 3 songs from Dehumanizer from 1992, a very honest heavy metal record but nothing more, for which our dear Iommi made the unforgivable mistake of badly ditching Tony Martin, the Shaman of the Sabbath, the greatest singer ever to grace the court of the mustached guitar hero. The songs in question are the single TV Crimes, very catchy but quickly tiresome, the pleasant but banal I and the wonderful, intense and esoteric After All (The Dead)  while Computer God, the only true masterpiece of the album, was not included, another colossal mistake that deters from buying the album. Instead, the perfect execution of Children Of The Sea from the much-maligned Live Evil of 1982 is beautiful, but in my opinion, if you want a truly amazing live performance by Black Sabbath, you should decidedly go for Cross Purposes Live. Really ugly, boring, and dull the 3 unreleased tracks Ear In The Wall, The Devil Cried, and Shadow Of The Wind, at levels even worse than Forbidden.

In conclusion, I strongly advise RJD to straighten out his solo career, since after the visionary and wonderful Angry Machines of '96, he has done nothing but produce increasingly banal and uninspired records, and as for Iommi, I'm still waiting for him to make a new album with Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Tony Martin. In conclusion, do not buy The Dio Years, not even if you're die-hard fans.