Dio Evil

A sequel to the 2004 set Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978, Rules of Hell rounds up all the Black Sabbath albums with Ronnie James Dio, beginning with 1980's Heaven and Hell and its 1981 follow-up Mob Rules, spending two discs on the 1982 live album Live Evil, then skipping forward a decade for Dehumanizer, Sabbath's reunion with Dio…

Considered by many to be the first heavy metal band, Black Sabbath was formed in 1968 by Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. The band's original name was the Polka Tulk Blues Band (later shortened to Polka Tulk) and later on changed to Earth) before becoming Black Sabbath inspired by an Italian horror movie of the same name…

Black Sabbath have been so influential in the development of heavy metal rock music as to be a defining force in the style. The group took the blues-rock sound of late-'60s acts like Cream, Blue Cheer, and Vanilla Fudge to its logical conclusion, slowing the tempo, accentuating the bass, and emphasizing screaming guitar solos and howled vocals full of lyrics expressing mental anguish and macabre fantasies. If their predecessors clearly came out of an electrified blues tradition, Black Sabbath took that tradition in a new direction, and in so doing helped give birth to a musical style that continued to attract millions of fans decades later.

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.

If a few breaks had come his way, David "Rock" Feinstein would have left his mark on the heavy metal masses a long time ago. As the leader of local New York rockers the Rods, Feinstein supplied vocals and guitar work to quite a few cult classic albums throughout the '80s. Not to mention a little-known fact: Feinstein's cousin was none other than Ronnie James Dio, and the two played together while both were members of Elf. And in 2010, Feinstein got around to issuing quite possibly his best solo effort yet, Bitten by the Beast. His roots with Dio continued to run deep up until the end (Dio passed away a few months before the release of Bitten by the Beast), as the album was one of the first to be released on Dio's newly formed label, Niji Entertainment, and even features a track with none other than Dio himself on vocals, the anthemic "Metal Will Never Die."

Here it is, the unholy quartet back in all its glorious ugliness with the name it should have had all along. Heaven & Hell are comprised of guitarist Tony Iommi, fuzz and buzz bassist Geezer Butler, drummer Vinny Appice, and vocalist Ronnie James Dio. The former pair were founding members of doom metal lords Black Sabbath, of course. Dio is best known as the lead singer of Elf, and then Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and Vinny Appice was Rick Derringer's drummer before joining these three lads in a new version of Sabbath after Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward left. This quartet issued a total of three recordings together, Heaven & Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981), and Dehumanizer (1992).