UPDATE, 2:06 pm: Reader Joe Siegler tells me that Ward didn’t “hold out” in ’97 — he was never asked to re-join the band. I apologize for my lapse in knowledge of Sabbath reunion lore. If he really wasn’t asked in 1997, that makes this whole thing all the more dramatic and dispiriting. Original story follows below…

Hope you weren’t too excited about Bill Ward participating in the upcoming Black Sabbath reunion.

Ward has always been the hold-out with these reunions. He didn’t participate when the band got back together for Ozzfest in ’97 (although by 1998, he had indeed rejoing the band), and he wasn’t a part of Heaven & Hell, the Dio-era Sabbath reunion, either. Now, according to a statement on his website, he may not be part of the Sabbath’s recently announced new album and tour, either:

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Until their new song, “Time and Time Again,” premiered online today (stream it here), I had not heard any music from Kill Devil Hill, the new band featuring Rex Brown and Vinny Appice. (I was about to type those dudes’ previous credits when I realized that if you don’t know who Brown and Appice are, I don’t especially care about you anyway.) I know there have been some live bootlegs floating around — the band has been gigging for awhile now — but I somehow managed to avoid them and wait for the real thing.

And now that I’ve heard it… it’s good. Not great. But not bad at all.

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And we can’t believe you’ve been gone a year already. Metal can never replace you.

For its season opener in October, VH1′s That Metal Show dedicated a broadcast hour to hailing the late Ronnie James Dio (view episode here). With access to the MTV vaults, TMS dredged up some old interview clips of RJD being totally cool and very metal. The first of them didn’t need much unearthing, though, ‘cuz it was from Dio’s last public appearance back in April at the Golden Gods thang. On my first viewing, I immediately got a lump in my throat, and was about to get downright blubbery when my attention was derailed by something totally amazing: Me! On the television! Well, really just my neck and head, bobbing stalkerishly beyond RJD as he cuddles on-air with TMS host Eddie Trunk and the other two. Lolz. Even in death, the man continues to ram fun into my life.

And fun can be similarly rammed into yours cuz Dio’s new/old live set is streaming freesies right here. It comes from remastered BBC tapes of a 1983 show (promoting Holy Diver) and a longer set from 1987 (Dream Evil), each at historic Castle Donington in England. Tasty. And and and Tuesday brings the release of the little-ballyhooed but potentially mind-shattering Heaven & Hell live set from last year’s Wacken Open Air. I say “potentially” because no advance copy has arrived for me yet cough cough. I’m a TV star now and, yeah, and I do not like to be kept waiting. I’ll be in my motherfucking trailer.

-ADF

Dio’s sexcellent double live album Dio At Donington UK is out now on Niji Entertainment. Heaven & Hell’s Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell, Live At Wacken comes out Tuesday.

With dollar signs in my eyes, I have seen the next great supergroup: Heaven & Hell with Phil Anselmo as their new singer. I mean, I don’t think that’s actually gonna happen, but I think it would sell a lotta tickets.

Anselmo did, however, join the band on-stage at the Dio tribute performance at the High Voltage Festival in London this past weekend. According to Metal Insider, even guest vocalist Glenn Hughes “was surprised by the Superjoint Ritual mastermind’s unscheduled appearance” during “Neon Knights.” I hope this very not-good fan-filmed footage isn’t the only record that exists of the performance — hopefully something pro-shot, or at least some photos, will appear online soon.

-AR

I made a joke earlier this week about Zakk Wylde taking the news of Ozzy’s new guitarist so hard that he wound up in the hospital for blood clots – but this has turned into some apparently serious shit. Not only has Wylde and Black Label Society been forced to drop off the Pedal to the Metal tour with Mudvayne, Suicide Silence, and some band where the dude has a stupid hair cut and is married to an ex-porn star, but he has to visit the hospital every 48 hours. A statement from Zakk (by way of the always helpful Blabbermouth):

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This week in Soundscan, supergroup Chickenfoot shifted a ridiculous number of records. I’m baffled too. Elsewhere, Iron Maiden had a solid debut and bands like Nickelback, Hollywood Undead, Shinedown, Slipknot, and Metallica continued on with business as usual.

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There are probably more old farts making relevant music than I usually give credit for. For every Ozzy or Metallica, whose later years have been more or less a total fucking disaster (creatively if not financially), there’s a Testament or Napalm Death who are still making music worth listening to after two or even three decades in the biz.

Of course, few of those artists have been at as long as the members of Black Sabbath – now re-christened Heaven & Hell – and even most of the Sabbath peers who can still pull it out live (Priest, Maiden) aren’t really releasing albums that are worth a damn these days. So the fact that The Devil You Know is so freakin’ sweet makes it feel like something of a marvel.

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The above line was uttered screamed by a manic Chris Farley / Wayne / Garth-hybrid Heaven & Hell fan at a San Bernadino in-store. Kudos for whoever caught this on camera and to our bro-bros at Metal Insider for picking it up!

-VN

Am I the only person who thinks the pairing of Heaven & Hell with Coheed & Cambria for a tour this summer is fan-fucking-tastic? All the emails we’ve gotten so far about the tour of the “wtf are they thinking?!” nature, but to me this lineup seems perfectly natural. Ronnie James Dio sings about demons, evil, and sorcery; Claudio Sanchez has written all of his band’s material about some crazy fantasy story no one who actually has a life can make heads or tails of. Dio has a skullet; Sanchez has beautiful, flowing, curly man-locks. Tony Iommi laid the blueprint for stoner metal with his epic, tasteful playing; Sanchez takes the torch and runs with it, never a showboat. Both bands are fucking awesome and make great music, which, truth be told, is pretty similar to one another. What am I missing here?

Slipknot taking out Coheed & Cambria… now that was a head-scratcher. But Heaven & Hell? It’s a no-brainer. If there’s such a thing as a modern version of Dio-era Sabbath, Coheed & Cambria are that band. Count me in as psyched; I’ll be there rocking out while the rest of you suckers stay home. Full list of confirmed tour dates after the jump.

-VN

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The new video for Heaven & Hell’s “The Bible Black” is… meh. Not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but not really that interesting.

So I encourage you to concentrate on the awesomeness of the music, not the blandness of the animation – ’cause this album is pretty spectacular. I’ll post a full review sometime this week, but for now, just know, this album rules.

-AR

The Devil You Know, the new Dio-Sabbath record, is every bit as rockin’ as I’d hoped it will be. I’m working on a review before its release a week from today, but if you’re anxious to hear it – and you really, really should be – it’s currently streaming on The Leak, which, for better or worse, is a VH1 sub-site.

GO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. IT IS AWESOME AND PUTS ALL OTHER VETERAN BANDS TO SHAME.

-AR

We’re just a few weeks away from the release of the 21st century’s first Sabbath album, The Devil You Know, which, kind of miraculously, will actually feature a line-up people give two shits about. Seriously, if you’d told me ten years ago there’d be a new Sabbath album in 2009, I would have shrugged and wondered who Iommi recruited this go-round. But, no, it’s Dio-Sabbath, it’s really coming out, and it’s going to be kick-ass.

So. 2 things:

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I know I’ve spoken out in the past – fuck, yesterday, even – against bands that have recently reunited recording new albums. But in the case of Heaven & Hell - né “Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio and without fear of being sued by Sharon Osbourne” – I think it’s safe to be optimistic.

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In 2004, the Painkiller-era Judas Priest line-up reunited and blew Black Sabbath off the stage at Ozzfest, so I supposed it’s only fair that in 2008, Sabbath should return the favor on the Metal Masters tour.

Of course, swapping out Ozzy Osbourne for Ronnie James Dio didn’t hurt.

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