Other than the sinister riffs, another reason this record has such a dark vibe is the fact that it took Dio’s fantastic lyric writing and Sabbath’s general dark imagery to conjure images of demons, fallen angels, and sin, which work together to give the album quite a hellish mood and atmosphere. But despite the quite fantastical imagery, the album still has a very personal edge to it. It’s given to you from such a very real point of view, going in-depth about the emotions, that you can have some sort of relation to it. It also lets the songs that are more purely about emotion and don’t quite have the fantasy element blend right in as well.

LOS ANGELES — After finishing several heralded world tours as Heaven & Hell last summer, Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice were tighter than ever before, both musically and personally. Agreeing that it would be a shame to stop making music together at tour’s end, the quartet began writing, first in England at Iommi’s home studio and later in Los Angeles at Dio’s studio. “The band had gotten too good to just walk away,” Dio says. “We wanted to show people that we were still capable of giving them new music that measured up to what we’d done in the past.” The album's US import was released in Japan on 24 April 2009, four days earlier than its original due date of 28 April. The Japan domestic pressing which is a SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) was released on 27 April. It was produced by the band and sound engineer Mike Exeter. [4] a b Cohen, Jonathan (10 February 2009). "Heaven & Hell Feeling Devilish on New Album". Billboard . Retrieved 11 February 2009.

Track listing

It took less than three weeks to finish the album, with most of the songs only needing a couple of takes. “It was good to play them live in the studio. It keeps you on edge,” Iommi says. “I mean, somewhere along the line we were gonna have to play them live; might as well start in the studio.” Butler adds: “We’ve learned from the past that you can kill a song doing it over and over. The first Sabbath albums were done in two or three days. Technically they weren’t great, but vibe-wise they were great. If you capture that feeling, that’s all you need.” Ultratop.be – Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 10 October 2021. Also, for those of you fortunate enough to get the Best Buy Exclusive version with the bonus DVD, I hope you enjoy it. I did not get a copy with it, but usually such bonus content is rare with Sabbath-releases. There's usually not a lot of extra frills on their stuff. So I'll take what you can get.

Kaz, Jim (29 April 2009). "Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know". IGN. Archived from the original on 14 April 2010 . Retrieved 26 April 2012. Heaven & Hell: The Devil You Know" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved 22 April 2018. Heaven & Hell's 'The Devil You Know' Lands in U.S. Top 10". Blabbermouth.net. Roadrunner Records. 6 May 2009 . Retrieved 6 May 2009. Dutchcharts.nl – Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 22 April 2018. Graff, Gary (25 July 2008). "Heaven & Hell 'Six Or Seven' Songs into New CD". Billboard . Retrieved 27 July 2008.The songs are generally big, staid tanks of lead, built on Vinny Appice's plodding 4/4 pound and loaded with a stately majesty that recalls this lineup's classics — the atmosphere of "Heaven and Hell" (the song) and "Children of the Sea", brought into the modern day and made just a little darker and more weighty. Some are decrying the sheer metric tonnage of doom on "The Devil You Know", but I submit that HEAVEN & HELL are at their brooding best on this more ponderous, epic material. The more uptempo "Double the Pain", for instance, is one of the few less-than-stellar cuts on the record, seeming like a castoff from Iommi's late-Eighties riff tapes (though even here, the band's effortless conviction comes pretty damn close to selling it). Austriancharts.at – Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 22 April 2018. Dio's vocals on this album are just some of the best and most aggressive sounding vocals he's ever put on an album. His vocals match the intensity that the album art for the album gives off as well as the album title itself. For being a couple years shy of seventy years old, Dio has still got it. In this album, Dio blends the perfect mixture of melody and aggression together to create some of the best vocals he's ever done on an album, if not the best. Dio's lyrical ability is also top notch and on this album he created some of the best lyrics he's ever written for any other album. The lyrics on this album are just great. The music is mostly played in minor keys, obviously to take advantage of the natural tendency to sound more imposing. The band does do a decent job of staying away from standard verse-chorus-verse structure. This makes the individual songs stand out more and keeps the album from running together. Unfortunately, many of the songs do tend to stay at one speed. Some tempo changes would serve to make the songs stand out even more. Geezer's time to shine on this album came on the song 'Double The Pain' where he starts the song off with a nice little bass solo and his bass is very audible throughout the song including a break in the middle of the song for another small bass solo. Geezer is on the ball on this album as he usually is. Geezer!

And yes, yes, yes. Dio. Of course, I'll talk about him. But we can't forget Vinny. He is a little bit under-appreciated in my opinion, but he is a solid drummer. He fills the spaces and remembers us constantly what's about drumming in heavy metal. He actually beat the irons. In "Fear", "Eating the Cannibals" and "Breaking into Heaven" he get his best. I’m going to echo the sentiment I have heard around here: not enough tempo variation. This was a problem for about the first two-to-three listens, but after I got to know the songs it’s not that big of a deal. Still, a little more variation could have boosted this in my eyes. Heaven & Hell: New Audio Interview With Ronnie James Dio, Geezer Butler Available – Mar. 27, 2009". blabbermouth.net. Archived from the original on 7 May 2012 . Retrieved 30 March 2009.The mix is powerful and expansive. Everything sounds enormous! The bass is nice and growly. Dio’s vocs are right out front like they should be. I dig the drums on “TDYK” way more than on “Dehumanizer”. If it were me, I’d boost the guitar two or three decibels at 400-500 Hz to give it more bite (it sounds fine as it is, but it’s quite polished). The artwork was based off an image called “Satan”, by an artist from Norway named Per Oyvind Haagensen. Link here. As a goof, I had a friend of mine who’s good with pixels, uh “fix” the cover art after it was announced. Here’s my “fixed” version. See if you can see what’s different. :)