Heaven and Hell: How Could It Be Improved?

[Zzzptm]

For some forum members here, the answer is "It can't. It's already the best." For others, we chose Mob Rules over H&H, so maybe we should explain ourselves. We all agree that it's a tough choice, but we still managed to make that choice...

I'll start on the criticism: there's not much that could be done, as it's so close to being the best. It's got "Neon Knights", "Children of the Sea", "Heaven and Hell", "Die Young", "Wishing Well", and "Lonely Is the Word." So many rock bands would sacrifice their rhythm guitar player just to have one of those songs in their repertoire, and here's six of them, all on the same album.

But "Lady Evil" is sort of a warmed-over "Tarot Woman" from Dio's stint in Rainbow and "Walk Away" may be a fun tune, but it really doesn't fit in with the rest of the album side. If those two swapped places with "Sign of the Southern Cross" and "Slipping Away", then H&H would be my #1 of the Dio era.

[Charger]

Well...the thng is...Individual songs Heaven And Hell, Neon Knights, Children Of the Sea, and Lonely Is The Word are better than anything on The Mob Rules but then this also has Wishing Well and Walk Away which are worse than anything on The Mob Rules. Lady Evil is another great track but not quite up to par with the 4 gems, same with Die Young.

Heaven And Hell the track is probably the most iconic heavy metal song ever made (or atleast it should be considered as such) everything about that song is pure perfection but the same can't be said about the album as a whole.

Walk Away is something that could have been a left over idea from Ronnie's Rainbow days combined with some music from TE and NSD only bit heavier. Wishing Well is lyrically good (which is no surprise) but musically it is miles behind the great six.

So eventhough this has some of Heavy Metal's best ever songs it does not have the consistency of The Mob Rules. One can only imagine how mind blowingly awesome thier third album would have been if it would have happened.

[Zzzptm]

Dude, we're going to have to agree to disagree about "Die Young." When I saw a video of that song, I had no clue what a Dio was. One of those magical discovery moments when I was a kid soon followed, and that's been one of my evergreen, absolute favorite songs.

[Charger]

Dude, we're going to have to agree to disagree about "Die Young." When I saw a video of that song, I had no clue what a Dio was. One of those magical discovery moments when I was a kid soon followed, and that's been one of my evergreen, absolute favorite songs.

Die Young is a great song...hell it blows most song out of the sky...BUT it just isn't as fantastic as the best tracks on the album.

[Zzzptm]

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree, as I think it's the best song on the album. Do we need a heal/hurt round to settle out how we all feel about the songs on this album? Because we can get that going in this thread, right here, right now... I'd say 10 points per song, so it goes pretty quickly.

[Charger]

We might consider doing one for each album at some point..but I think we've got enough of that going on now as it is...

[BOGBLAST]

The thing that bugs me about H&H is Tony's guitar tone. It just doesn't seem to have the "punch" that Iommi riffs are supposed to have. Not doomy enough. Prefer the tone on MR.

[Zzzptm]

So... the tone... is that a matter of Iommi moving around or Martin Birch trying to find the magic numbers on the mixing boards?

[BOGBLAST]

So... the tone... is that a matter of Iommi moving around or Martin Birch trying to find the magic numbers on the mixing boards?

I'm no musician but there are so many effects pedals or amp adjustments that I think he should have experimented a little more. He seems to have done so on MR.