Tony Iommi is a living legend! His band Black Sabbath created a genre all on their own with Tony providing the most iconic and devastating riffs. His career has been stellar whether he performed with Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell or as a solo-artist. And it is fantastic to see that after the final show with Black Sabbath in hometown Birmingham and beating a cancer diagnose, he felt the need to continue his musical journey even though he is in his late seventies and could easily afford to retire from music.
RENEWED ENERGY
For the last year gone by Tony has been working on ‘From The Dark’, his first solo-effort in a few decades. Accompanied by his long serving friend Mike Exeter (co-producer, co-composer, engineer), drummer Karl Brazil and bassplayer extraordinaire Becky Baldwin the master of the metal riff found some much needed renewed energy after striking a partnership with one of the best metal singers of the last 25 years.
Norwegian vocalist Jorn Lande has had a stellar career himself as a solo-artist, with German band Masterplan, a partnership with Sir Russell Allen and the formations Ark, Millenium, Vagabond, Beyond Twilight and The Snakes. On top of that he had plenty of invitations as a guest singer for various projects. His voice and power have been often compared to the late great Ronnie James Dio. There is certainly some truth in that, but Jorn has throughout the years developed his own style and phrasing.
PERFECT PARTNERSHIP
When you hear the songs on ‘From The Dark’ nobody can deny that Tony Iommi and Jorn Lande have developed a perfect partnership. They wrote the songs together, feeding of each other and coming up with a bunch of songs that bring back the Sabbath and Heaven And Hell era but with a more modern twist. The sound is majestic. Listen to “Stormwatcher”, for me the absolute highlight of the album. Heavy metal with an unmistakable doom element woven into the song. Drums and bass just pound, the riff is monumental, the solo divine and Jorn just belts it out with power and aggression. It is a song where all the elements of this outfit come together as one. Also “Death Wake” has this creepy doomy character that only Tony Iommi is able to create. Goosebump material people!
BLUE PRINT
If you have been following the career of Tony Iommi you can only come to the conclusion that ‘From The Dark’ as a whole is one of the finest moments in his long career. There have been so many top albums made by Tony with Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, Tony Martin and Glenn Hughes. This record with Jorn Lande, Becky Baldwin and Karl Brazil, is right up there. From top to bottom ‘From The Dark’ is impressive, heavy as fuck and filled with top notch songs. It is a new blue print for the metal and doom genre, created by the man who stood at the crib of it all: Tony Iommi!
Report by Raymond Helebrand
