Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know

This was a highly anticipated album for me. After one listen my overall impression was mixed. After a few more listens I have to say that the album is starting to grow on me. The album has an interesting flow of slow and medium paced songs. But, they are all heavy. The album is a masterpiece of sound recording and mixing. You can hear every musician clearly, and one does not outshine the other. Dio sounds fantastic, better than he has in a number of years. Geezers bass is the heaviest it has ever been. Iommi has more solo's on this album tyhan ever before and they are amazing. Appice is good but seems to be going through the motions on some tracks. This album has a couple of songs that sound like they came straight from DIO's solo catalogue, but, oh well, they are still pretty good. This album is on par with Dehumanizer. Therefore in my opinion it is better than Mob Rules but not quite as good as Heaven and Hell.

"Atom & Evil" - 5:15 This is the opening song. First time I heard it I thought it was a bit slow to open the album. After a few more listens I got used to the pace and really like this slow dreary sounding song.

"Fear"- 4:48 Love the riff on this song. But the chorus leaves something to be desired. Lyrically it reminds me of some of the songs from Headless Cross.

"Bible Black"- 6:29 We have all heard this one because it was pre-released. Very good song.

"Double the Pain"- 5:25 Opens with a distorted bass line reminiscent of some spots on the Mob Rules album. Song has a good riff, good pace, so-so lyrics.Overall this one of the weaker tracks.

"Rock & Roll Angel"- 6:25 This sounds like a DIO song and the album goes a bit downhill at this point.

"The Turn of the Screw"- 5:02 Another DIO sounding song and another average track.

"Eating the Cannibals"- 3:37 - Even though this is a fast paced track compared to the rest of the album,this song is the worst track on the album in my opinion.

"Follow the Tears"- 6:12 Very slow and very, very heavy. A bit like the pace of the first song.They returned to form on this one.

"Neverwhere"- 4:35 Faster paced song. Reminds me of "Falling off the Edge of the World"

"Breaking into Heaven"- 7:03 Mixed pace song. Good work on this one from Iommi. Reminiscent of the way Iommi likes his albums to finish... ie... slow and heavy. See... Eternal Idol, Forbidden, Heaven and Hell..

Overall some people will dig the hell out of this while other may feel disappointed.I myself feel a little let down by the album.I think i might have expected too much but having said all that this album is still better than 90% of the crap out there and is certainly better than recent albums by Priest,Maiden etc etc.Rating - a high 7/10.