Blinding Eyes and Stealing Dreams - How Heaven & Hell Broke Out of Heaven

A box set centered on the late 2000s reunion of the Dio-fronted Black Sabbath lineup

Ozzy Osbourne’s departure from Black Sabbath in 1979 was a catastrophic event for any metalhead. It was a long time coming, between his excessive drug/alcohol abuse and a growing disinterest in the group’s material. Ronnie James Dio, who had just fronted the first three albums of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, became the next and second-highest-regarded vocalist for the godfathers of metal. Whereas Osbourne simply followed the melody of Tony Iommi’s guitar riffs, Dio’s operatic vocal style and medieval lyrics shifted Sabbath’s material into a whole new dimension. Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules not only triumphed over the group’s weaker output from the tail end of the ‘70s, but re-energized the group at the turn of the 1980s. Conflicts and miscommunication over the Live Evil live album drove Dio to leave the group in 1982. Ten years later on Dehumanizer under strenuous circumstances Dio and company reignited the spark. He once again left when Sabbath were slotted to open some shows on Ozzy Osbourne’s first farewell tour, which would’ve set the stage for a reunion that also never materialized. 

In 2007, the classic Dio-fronted Black Sabbath lineup (Ronnie James Dio/Tony Iommi/Geezer Butler/Vinny Appice) was commissioned to record a few tracks for a new compilation, The Dio Years. The experience was rewarding enough for the group to embark on a reunion tour. To avoid confusion over the Black Sabbath moniker, an active entity with Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward at the helm, the group rechristened themselves as Heaven & Hell, named after Dio’s first album with the group. It was a short-lived project that wound up being more special in retrospect, being Dio’s final active years before succumbing to stomach cancer in May 2010.

The Packaging

Breaking Out of Heaven 2007-2009 brings together Heaven & Hell’s sole studio album, The Devil You Know, and two live albums, Radio City Music Hall Live! and Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell - Live at Wacken, as an encompassing anthology for the first time. The box set includes a 40-page book of Hugh Gilmour’s essay, supplemented by associated photos and memorabilia. It also comes with a replica of the 2007 tour programme and a poster of the artwork from The Devil You Know (try persuading your significant other to hang that in the bedroom!). Initially taking up three sides of vinyl, The Devil You Know is now augmented with a fourth side–the bonus tracks found initially on The Dio Years. Radio City Music Hall Live! makes its official vinyl debut in a sharp trifold jacket bearing live shots and testimonials from members. Each of the seven LPs, pressed at Optimal, came in polylined sleeves and looked absolutely flawless. 

The Music & Sound

Radio City Music Hall Live!

One of the high points of Heaven & Hell’s initial tour was a stop at Radio City Music Hall, one of New York’s most prestigious venues, on March 30th, 2007. One of the most liberating things about this group was that since they avoided being called Black Sabbath, they got away with not having to mandatorily perform tracks like “War Pigs,” “Iron Man, and “Paranoid.” This broadened their selection of material to perform, dusting off tracks like “Lady Evil” and “Lonely Is The Word,” which hadn’t been performed since 1980. Despite the Dehumanizer era being short-lived, it’s fresh to hear the domineering “After All (The Dead)” open the show in such strong form. Radio City Music Hall Live! stands as the hellish quartet’s definitive and most encompassing live document. 

Radio City Music Hall Live! is mixed where the listener closes eyes and visualizes the band on stage. Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi are placed on their respective left and right sides, leaving Ronnie James Dio centered, and Vinny Appice’s 18-piece drum kit panned tastefully across. As appropriate as the presentation is, the instrumental backing sounds constricted. There’s enough dynamics in Heaven & Hell’s music to make them sound imposing. Instead, it comes across as flat, shrouded in a veil of steady applause. The most dynamic factor of this pressing is Dio’s vocals, sounding consistently full. Some of Butler’s notable moments, such as his punchy tone on “Lady Evil” or the distinct ‘wah’ effect on “The Sign of the Southern Cross,” also stand out nicely. 

The Devil You Know

Heaven & Hell’s 2007 tour was initially a one-off and enough of a fulfilling experience for members to swap demo CDs of material for what became their first album together since 1992’s Dehumanizer. The Devil You Know, released in April 2009, was indicative of what the group did best: low-and-slow instrumentation and evil lyrical imagery. One of the album’s highlights is “Bible Black,” beginning sparse and soft before the whole band builds in with a crushing vengeance. Some of Tony Iommi’s most inspiring riffs are featured on “Atom and Evil,” “Fear,” and “Follow The Tears,” arguably one of the group’s, let alone Black Sabbath’s, heaviest compositions ever crafted. “Rock and Roll Angel” is one of the group’s more musically mature compositions, deviating from typical moody minor-key signatures into uplifting major ones, not to mention a beautifully melodic bridge and acoustic interludes. Whereas Black Sabbath’s reunion album with Ozzy Osbourne, released four years later as 13, felt overly derivative of their legacy, Heaven & Hell’s first (and final) studio outing with Ronnie James Dio felt fresh and just as daring as what they did before. 

Sonically, this pressing of The Devil You Know matches the ante of Heaven & Hell’s heavy musicality. Tony Iommi’s guitars sound outright menacing, creating dense walls of gloom. Some underlying elements, such as acoustic guitars in the pre-chorus on “Double the Pain,” are more noticeable. Moments where bassist Geezer Butler follows the root of Iommi’s riffs provide incredible muscular definition. Only Ronnie James Dio can provide the kind of vocals that sound dry without much post-production and cut through a busy mix with the utmost passion, sounding the most intimate on “Rock and Roll Angel.” Vinny Appice’s drums have a deep punch that matches the power of Iommi and Geezer, though the sizzling cymbal crashes tend to sound distorted towards the end of a respective side. One track that succeeds in providing a devilish aura to the soundstage is “Follow The Tears.” Crunching chords go up against gothic organ chords and a harrowing drum march before leading into a doomy groove. However, there’s a noticeable sonic difference on the bonus tracks from The Dio Years on the fourth side, riding high in the mids/highs and barely any bottom-end impact. 

Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell - Live at Wacken

Heaven & Hell headlined the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany on July 30th, 2009. Performing alongside other classic and contemporary metal groups, their performance proved their stature as giants of the genre. This is far from a condensed, reshuffling of material heard on Radio City Music Hall Live! It features a smattering of choice cuts from The Devil You Know (“Bible Black,” “Fear,” and “Follow The Tears”) and “Time Machine,” a Dehumanizer track that wasn’t part of the group’s initial reunion repertoire. Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell - Live at Wacken was released posthumously after Ronnie James Dio’s death in November 2010, serving as a long-lasting tribute and a poignant document of his final professionally recorded live performance.  

Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell - Live at Wacken encapsulates the thrill and excitement of being amongst a crowd of 77,000 metalheads. They let out a rapturous roar after every song, and it’s particularly hair-raising to hear them chant during the intro of “Follow The Tears” or sing along to the main riff of “Heaven and Hell.” Most of the band sounds solid except for Vinny Appice’s thin-sounding drums, but it doesn’t diminish his tight performance. Upon its initial release, the audio-only component of this show excludes “E5150,” Vinny Appice’s drum solo, and “Country Girl,” which are on the DVD version. This box set was a missed opportunity to present it in its entirety. 

Conclusion

Breaking Out of Heaven 2007-2009 is a great reminder of how Dio’s involvement with Black Sabbath made way for a body of work that is hailed by the metal intelligentsia. It was courageous for these men in their 60s to forge a fresh beginning under the Heaven & Hell banner and go toe to toe with any modern band out there. Given the three-figure values of their out-of-print catalog, this box set is deserved.