RIDGEWOOD, NJ—The concept still astounds me: Black Sabbath in Bergen County! There are precious few bands around that I will turn into the 13-year-old kid from Nowhere, NJ over. At this point in the biz, there are really only two: Rush and Black Sabbath. So when I heard that…
Interview with Jus Oborn from Electric Wizard: Spine Tingle And Soul Burn
Their music is creepier than Christopher Lee overseeing an island of naked ‘70s pagan hippies, and for U.K. doomers Electric Wizard, that’s just how they want it. For nigh on 18 years, guitarist/vocalist Jus Oborn has refined one of the most individual and distinctive sounds in heavy metal, and that…
Ronnie James Dio: 1942-2010
It’s been a sad few weeks for metal. With the passing of Peter Steele, fans mourned one of the genre’s vampiric, self-deprecating and complicated legends—but a legend that you might run into at a show. The legacy of Ronnie James Dio seems so much more untouchable and pure.
The…
Ronnie James Dio Diagnosed with Stomach Cancer
Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Dio, Heaven And Hell and Elf singer Ronnie James Dio has been diagnosed with stomach cancer, according to his wife Wendy on Dio’s official website. She writes:
“Ronnie has been diagnosed with the early stages of stomach cancer. We are starting treatment immediately at the
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Interview With Tony Iommi of Heaven & Hell: Knowing The Devil
On heavy metal Mt. Olympus, Black Sabbath/Heaven And Hell guitarist Tony Iommi is more or less Zeus. Around the house we call him “The Man From Whose Fingers Heavy Metal Sprang” (clearly not into the whole brevity thing), and though there isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about the…
Interview with Heaven And Hell: They Say That Life’s A Carousel
Since it was announced late last year that the lineup of Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice would be touring under the moniker Heaven And Hell, there has been much fervor in the Black Sabbath camp. Not only has The Dio Years been released by Rhino,…
Black Sabbath: Live At The Hammersmith Odeon
Sure, I know we just had Black Sabbath as Disc Of The Week a couple issues ago for the Rhino collection, The Dio Years, and the challenge I’d issue in response to anyone who’d call me out on these Double DOTW shenanigans is this: find me something better than Black…
Black Sabbath: The Dio Years
Yeah, it’s a compilation, a Greatest Hits, but still, it’s impossible not to appreciate Black Sabbath’s The Dio Years for the extreme quality of the material. What was originally theorized as a three-disc boxed set and eventually slimmed down to its current presentation, the collection not only features some of…
