Tony Iommi steps out: Review of “From The Dark”

I was surprised to hear about the release of this album. “From The Dark” comes 21 years after Tony Iommi‘s last solo record, “Fused”, and it’s out on 23 October via BMG. It’s also his first full-length release of any kind since Black Sabbath‘s “13” in 2013. On top of that, it arrives a little over a year after the band said goodbye in Birmingham with “Back To The Beginning”, followed only a few weeks later by the loss of Ozzy.

What I didn’t know until I started reading around it is that this was never meant to be a vocal record. Tony’s original plan was an instrumental album, until Norwegian singer Jørn Lande brought in his first two tracks and changed the direction completely. In the end, Lande co-wrote all eight songs and took on every lyric, with Becky Baldwin on bass, Karl Brazil on drums, and long-time partner Mike Exeter co-producing and playing keys.

On first listening, the album feels like a solid breath of fresh air, and Lande’s voice is a big part of that: it brings exactly what the music world needs today. The guitar work throughout is stunning, while Baldwin and Brazil together are a powerhouse, adding some extra toppings to an already great production. Even so, there are moments where the vocals seem to be filling gaps rather than leading, and you can almost hear that this record started life as an instrumental one.

The album opens with “Over The Violent Sun”, which sounds like the classic first-single choice, yet it isn’t one. Here, the guitar riff locks in with the bass line to create something almost hypnotic, and Jørn’s voice cuts through it like a knife.

Lande’s lyrics carry their own darkness. Some of them describe nuclear apocalypse, and when Rolling Stone asked Tony about it, his first reaction was, “God, this is really sort of heavy, but it’s things that’s happening.” I couldn’t agree more, and to me those words are exactly what this album needed to hit even harder. Take “Black Times”: on first listen you don’t quite get the whole thing, but after a few more it just makes sense, and it’s where Jørn’s voice comes closest to Ronnie James Dio. Then comes “Beyond The Dead”, slower but no less powerful, where the slide solo builds in a crescendo over what had already felt like a heavier, more patient song than the opener.

The two singles out so far, “World Alone” and “Stormwatcher”, are certainly interesting choices. “World Alone” is a proper headbanger, and Tony’s masterful guitar work makes it the real headline of the album. I personally loved this song, its bridge especially. “Stormwatcher”, on the other hand, goes the other way. It’s a much slower choice, almost a reminder that you don’t need speed to be heavy. Lande builds it around a ship caught in a storm, a story he describes as life’s struggles from birth to death and beyond.

Finally, “Legacy” is a great way to end the album. It brings in musical elements that don’t appear anywhere else on the record, even a brief Spanish guitar passage I wasn’t quite expecting, which left me wondering why they were saved for the very end.

Given the quality of this album, 21 years of waiting feels extreme. It also left me curious about how it would have sounded as the instrumental record Tony first planned and whether the songs would have run in a different order. I guess we’ll never know. What I’m left wondering now is whether this is it for Tony or the beginning of a new chapter, because if it’s the latter, I’m excited for it.

Tracklist

1. Over The Violent Sun
2. Black Times
3. World Alone
4. Beyond The Dead
5. Stormwatcher
6. Death Wake
7. Return Of The Arbalist
8. Legacy