Review Summary: So sue me, but I never was big on Ozzy-era Sabbath...
first off, his whiny, high-pitched caterwauling made him a really bad singer, and secondly, the songs in that era often lacked sufficient energy, becoming dull and unengaging. Fortunately, Dio-era Sabbath fixed that with the release of Heaven And Hell, with greatly increased song energy and (more importantly) Ronnie's great voice, and from that point, Dio's Sabbath was the only era of the band I really payed any attention to.
Unfortunately, follow-up Mob Rules was sorely lacking in bite, and Dio soon left the band over some petty squabble that isn't important enough to get into here, taking drummer Vinny Appice with him to form his solo group, and leaving the rest of Sabbath to go through a rotating line-up of singers/drummers as most metalheads wrote off their post-Dio albums as irrelevant. But in 1990, Appice, bassist Geezer Butler (who had left Sabbath back in '84), and (most importantly) Ronnie were feeling nostalgic, and before Ronnie left again in '92 over another petty squabble, the newly-reformed Mob Rules-era line-up cranked out Dehumanizer, which became their biggest post-Mob Rules success, and, while it doesn't quite live up to Heaven And Hell's quality, it's still a nice little epilogue to the Dio-era.
After Appice's pounding drum rhythm and Iommi's heavy, methodical riffing kicks in on opener "Computer God", you know right away that you're dealing with a darker, heavier Dio-Sabbath, which is reflected perfectly in the lyrics: "Waiting for the revolution/New clear vision: genocide/Computerize god, it's the new religion/Program the brain, not the heartbeat". Dio's vocals still sound pretty good here, though not as good as they were in 70's/80's, but I'll still take them over Ozzy's singing any day. So, everything sounds pretty dandy here, right? Not quite; while "Computer God" is a pretty catchy, decently entertaining song overall, its tempo isn't quite speedy enough, so it does drag some, and the occasional weak section transition further cuts down on the momentum, leaving the final product a little clunkier than desirable, and that's a problem that resurfaces on other Dehumanizer songs as well.
Next up is "After All (The Dead)", which comes uncomfortably close to the draggy, dreary days of Ozzy-Sabbath, and while Dio's presence does ensure it doesn't get quite that boring, it's still a disappointment. Fortunately, "TV Crimes" gets Dehumanizer back up to speed (literally), with the most energetic, driving tempo of any song here, and a great solo to boot, and thus, is the best track here. But despite that obvious high point, Dehumanizer still manages to maintain a decent level of quality after that point, with solid (if slightly clunky) tracks like "Master Of Insanity", "Time Machine", and "I" helping it to close out as a pretty worthy addition to the Dio-era.
So, despite some clunkiness here and there, Dehumanizer still has plenty of heavy, vintage-Iommi riffs, pounding drum work from Appice, good solos, and Geezer's groovy bass lines, and all of that, combined with its uniquely dark, heavy take on the melodic Dio-era means it should please almost any Sabb fan out there (unless they're big Ozzy fanboys or something.) So, even though this isn't the first Dio-related album you should try out, in the end, it
is worth checking out, so give it a shot, will ya?
