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For an undisputed member of the rock god pantheon, Tony Iommi has had a surprisingly spotty solo career. His intended solo debut, Seventh Star, was instead released as a Black Sabbath album in 1986, and it’s widely considered one of their worst. In 2000, the guitarist took an admirable swing with the guest-heavy grab bag Iommi, but not all of its nü-era experiments hold up. Iommi then released two more records with Seventh Star singer Glenn Hughes, which were both awash in blues-dad cliché. Given that track record, the 78-year-old Iommi’s first solo outing in more than two decades arrives as somewhat of a shock. From the Dark is the heaviest album Iommi has made in years. It’s also the best thing he’s ever put out under his own name.
From the Dark is effective in part for what it isn’t. Iommi recently revealed that the producer Andrew Watt, who has lately helmed slick but dull albums by the likes of the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney, offered to record a final Black Sabbath LP before Ozzy Osbourne’s death—an idea Iommi rejected out of hand. The Ozzy-led version of Sabbath concluded with the Rick Rubin-produced 13, and Iommi apparently had no desire to revisit it. He also didn’t want to make a record that sounded like his collaborations with Hughes. Credit Iommi’s instincts; neither of those routes were likely to lead to an album as invigorating as From the Dark. Instead, we’ve been given what feels like a follow-up to The Devil You Know, the 2009 album fronted by Ronnie James Dio and credited to Heaven & Hell. That album, like the Dio Sabbath classics before it, was fine-tuned for metalhead appreciation, thick with crushing riffs and dramatic vocals. From the Dark proudly scratches the same headbanging itch.
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Iommi has expressed ambivalence about heavy metal in the past, preferring to think of Sabbath as simply a rock band. But when he works with a certain type of singer—Dio, the underappreciated former Sabbath frontman Tony Martin, and now, the Norwegian power metal vocalist Jørn Lande—his writing adapts to fit their more flamboyantly metallic styles. (Martin also auditioned for From the Dark but was beaten out by Lande, who filled in at a Heaven & Hell gig after Dio’s death in 2010.) Where Ozzy-era Sabbath played loose and dirty, with huge amounts of swing and distortion, this version of Iommi is magisterially precise, his guitar a razor rather than a sledgehammer. He doesn’t waste a note on From the Dark, in his monolithic riffs or his gliding, silky solos. On both the doomier numbers (“Black Times,” “Beyond the Dead”) and the straight-up rockers (“World Alone,” “Return of the Arbalist”), he’s in total control—of his tone, and of the album’s.
Guitar is the core of From the Dark, but Lande gives it a beating heart. It’s a career-best performance for the former Masterplan and Beyond Twilight frontman (not that many listeners will have heard any of his other work—I recommend his 1998 album with Mundanus Imperium, The Spectral Spheres Coronation). As Lande has gotten older, his tenor range has acquired a sooty patina, which lends a little extra gravitas to From the Dark’s lyrics about death and the apocalypse. It’s true that you can hear his Dio discipleship in every note, but as imitations go, there hasn’t been one better. The rhythm section of bassist Becky Baldwin (Mercyful Fate) and journeyman session drummer Karl Brazil adds little but at least doesn’t detract from Iommi and Lande’s interplay. The only real letdown is that the guest leads from Queen’s Brian May on “Death Wake” feel anonymous. We might as well have gotten one more solo out of Iommi instead.
Henry Rollins popularized the axiom that you can only trust yourself and the first six Black Sabbath albums. Fair enough, but Tony Iommi didn’t stop making music in 1975, and his discography since then, uneven though it may be, is a lot more interesting than it gets credit for. That’s partly because Iommi doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to at this point in his career. From the Dark is a creative triumph, but it also feels like it’s coming from a pure place. “It’s not the fame I’m after/I just need eternal flame,” Lande ventriloquizes on the slow-burning album closer “Legacy,” just before Iommi unspools a pair of aching, melodic solos on electric and acoustic guitar. I believe it.
