‘The Devil You Know’: the Black Sabbath album left out of the timeline
For many heavy metal fans, the glory days of Black Sabbath ended the moment that Ozzy Osbourne was sent packing. He had been the force behind some of their finest moments, and even if they decided to continue on, they were never going to be the same without ‘The Prince of Darkness’ behind the microphone. But even if Sabbath belonged to Tony Iommi throughout every iteration of the group, one of the heavy metal pioneer’s best albums didn’t technically get made by them.
Then again, Iommi wasn’t going to roll over because Osbourne felt he couldn’t function with them in the 1980s. He was still a fine singer on his own with ‘Crazy Train’, but the guitarist found another one-of-a-kind artist once Ronnie James Dio joined their ranks. He didn’t sound remotely like Osbourne, but that wasn’t the point. This was a creative rebirth, and Heaven and Hell was them flexing their muscles amid the new heavy metal acts out at the time.
While the band’s stint with Dio lasted even shorter than Osbourne’s did, there was always room for them to work on something different. After all, Mob Rules was still one of their finest moments, and even if some of their reunion albums, like Dehumanizer, worked out alright, there was always something keeping them at a distance.
Once everyone reconvened for The Dio Years, though, the wheels began turning for the Dio-fronted lineup to come back. But there was one problem: Osbourne had shared rights over the Sabbath name, and he wasn’t about to let a replacement singer start parading around as the band’s new singer. It might have been a shitty situation to put someone in, but Iommi settled on the next best thing: rebranding.
Now operating under the band name Heaven and Hell, the Iommi-fronted lineup of Sabbath went back into the studio to crank out a new record. And for anyone who was even vaguely hyped about songs like ‘Neon Knights’ back in the day, The Devil You Know is still one of the greatest albums that Sabbath never technically made.
Then again, you’d be a fool to think that this was anything other than Tony Iommi when the riffs to tracks like ‘Bible Black’ start. He could still play the doomiest riffs imaginable, and since Osbourne had to fluctuate between what notes he could hit as the years wore on, Dio sounded like he hadn’t developed an ounce of rust on his trademark pipes, managing to hit the same massive notes he did in his prime.
The only issue with the record was its release. Unbeknownst to the fans, Dio had been battling stomach cancer while working on the album. But even after undergoing chemotherapy, Dio pulled off an insane feat on the same level as David Bowie would do on Blackstar, crafting a final goodbye to the fans that hit as hard as it did when hearing him perform in Rainbow for the first time.
So, no matter what the legal system might require this album to be called, The Devil You Know is still one of the finest moments of Sabbath’s later career and even manages to give their official farewell 13 a run for its money in terms of raw aggression. And while Osbourne might have had his own feelings on when Sabbath should officially come to an end, this is a fitting epitaph for the era of the band that pulled them out of the creative doldrums back in the 1980s.
