The Dio Years (Bonus Track Version) [Remastered]

iTunes Review

"Along with being a heavy-metal pioneer and an otherworldly falsetto singer, the late, great Ronnie James Dio didn't made a big deal about not being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Black Sabbath. Dio lived for the music and this solid comp culls the best of his 1979 to 1992 tenure with Black Sabbath. On 1980's Heaven and Hell, along with 1981's Mob Rules and 1982's Live Evil, Dio helped take Black Sabbath's music to a harder, faster and more sinister sounding realm than Ozzy Osbourne's voice and work ethic could provide. He even kept 1992's Dehumanizer true to form during a time when many metalheads were succumbing to grunge. The Dio Years appropriately opens with ""Neon Knights,"" a fast-driving juggernaut of medieval-inspired, muscle-bound metal. In the anthemic ""Heaven and Hell"" he builds on Ozzy-era sludge-riffs with athletically taut vocals characteristic of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The last three songs here, recorded in 2007 for this outing, make up for a curiously absent ""The Sign of the Southern Cross."" "