Black Obsidan

Super Deluxe Edition Of The Band’s 1972 Classic Includes Newly Remastered Original Album Plus 20 Previously Unreleased Studio And Live Recordings.

The first two Ronnie James Dio-fronted Black Sabbath albums, 1980’s Heaven and Hell and 1981’s Mob Rules, are receiving deluxe reissues via Rhino Records.

Everybody knows that Black Sabbath's legacy rests on their first four albums – after that, they lost their luster, or more precisely their mythic power. At their peak, which is how they are remembered, Sabbath were all about myth and power. Their very name had an ominous resonance, capturing their murky, foreboding sound perfectly…

"Seventh Star" was intended to be a Tony Iommi solo album. However, the record company wanted the album released under the Black Sabbath moniker. A compromise was reached and the record was billed as "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi". When the band went on tour, they dropped "Featuring Tony Iommi" from their name and Iommi continued releasing new studio albums under the Black Sabbath name through 1995.

After years of playing a dispiriting game of musical chairs with various lead singers during the early '80s, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi finally stumbled upon a dependable frontman when he admitted relative unknown Tony Martin into the fold, thereby initiating the original heavy metal band's long awaited return to respectability – if not chart-topping success. Martin joined the oft-interrupted sessions for what would become 1987's The Eternal Idol album already in progress, stepping in for an unreliable Ray Gillen when the latter moved on to Jake E. Lee's Badlands, and helping Iommi rescue an astonishingly solid long-player from the jaws of complete and utter chaos.