Black Sabbath - The Rules of Hell

Deluxe 5-CD slipcase boxed set collects Black Sabbath’s complete Dio-fronted catalog: Heaven And Hell, Mob Rules, Live Evil (2 CDs), and Dehumanizer. Each title was recently remastered for the first time ever and features extensive liner notes including new band interviews. Heaven And Hell (1980) is regarded as one of Sabbath’s all-time best with its anthem tracks 'Neon Knights', 'Die Young' and the epic title track. Mob Rule's (’81) was the first Sabbath LP to feature Appice on drums (replacing Bill Ward), delivering high octane classics like 'Falling Off The Edge Of The World', 'Turn Up The Night' and 'The Sign Of The Southern Cross'. Live Evil, the group’s 1982 double-live set, is an in-concert masterpiece and a testament to the raw power of Sabbath’s Dio, Iommi, Butler, and Appice lineup on fourteen epic tracks. Dehumanizer (’92). Album Description

Dissapointing but handy

Somewhat dissapointed in this release. Yes, it is very cool to have all the DIO-Era material in one handy box set, but it looks like the fans are being shortchanged - no bonus tracks, no booklet, or any other extras. It is quite apparent this was done without any of the band's input.

However, my biggest complaint is that the calling card of this box set is that the music is remastered. I perused all the other reviews, but noticed that no one has mentioned that THESE CDS HAVE ALL BEEN REMASTERED BEFORE- by the UK's Castle Records in 1996. And their packaging was better with extensive liner notes. Dehumanizer is the only one that wasn't remastered then, but that came out in the 90s, so what type of improvement would there be anyway?

I am inclined to sell this version I bought on EBAY and simply put my Castle Remasters in a little box and call it a box set. August 18, 2008

The Rules Of Hell Are Not To Release Mediocre Material Among Classics

"Heaven and Hell" and "The Mob Rules" were two of my favorite LP's during my teenage years. I am happy they have been re-mastered for "The Rules Of Hell" a five CD set featuring all the albums from Sabbath's Dio era. All of the music sounds brand new as opposed to the dated sounds of the original pressings of the CDs. A complaint here is that the material on here is only available as a boxed set. The price Amazon is offering is more than fair, however, I could have done without owning "Dehumanizer" an album that was released when both Dio and Sabbath were at career lows. "Dehumanizer" has some okay songs but comes no where near the brilliance of the first two albusm. Also, having a listen to "Live Evil" for the first time in two decades I am reminded it is one of the worst live albums ever released. Dio has a great voice, but his interpretations of the Ozzy Osbourne songs just sound wrong. Still, "Heaven and Hell" and "The Mob Rules" are classics that are worth having. Rhino needs to release them separately. August 11, 2008

Great Stuff!

I'm not going to go into the Ozzy versus Ronnie versus Tony Martin versus Ian Gillan etc debut. The simple fact is that each singer brought their own vibe to the band and all of them are great singers in they're own right. However Ronnie seems to fit the Sabbath sound perfectly. His strong vocals and the way he presents them just seem to take the band to new levels.

This little Box Set will give you the listener a new way to enjoy some of Sabbath's best stuff. Heaven and Hell sounds awesome as does Mob Rules. Live Evil is once again uncut and the way it should be and Dehumanize is really good as well. All the disc get a new look which is cool and liner notes and pics throughout. You wont find the three newer tunes on hear which is a bit of a drag and you find any hidden gems that have been released for the first time. It's just the original albums remastered to a T and what's wrong with that?

As the others have said, if you've never heard these gems?, you have to pick them up. For those of us who know them well and already have these in our collection, it's still pretty much a must have. Heaven and Hell alone is worth it as it just sounds fantastic!

Good stuff all around here. Now all we need is a Box Set from the Tony Martin years.
August 7, 2008

the dio years box set?where heaven/helldvd/2cds and new songs?

this is just a timely rerelease for the metal master tour(selling point1).yes thay probly should remaster and re release these classics but the 81 live at hammersmith,heaven & hell dvd/2 cd set and the 3 new songs?maybe a couple new brand new tunes should have been in this, with some extended liner notes and booklet covering 79-82/2007-2008 pictures.as for the best buy limited eddition 6th cd that should be in every box! August 4, 2008

Classic albums, but I expected much more from Rhino. Could have done this better.

Contrary to popular belief, Black Sabbath didn't break-up when Osbourne was fired in 1979. They carried on with another 15 years' worth of albums -- longer than their first time with Ozzy -- and even saw an initial INCREASE in their sales and concert attendance compared to their slump in the late 70s. And the success of the Iommi/Butler/Dio/Appice reunion under the name "Heaven and Hell" has proven that plenty of fans still love the Dio years. So here comes the follow-up to the Ozzy years "Black Box" box set: "The Rules of Hell". As it damn well should, because the "Dio Years" single disc compilation just isn't enough! As bassist Geezer Butler explained in a recent interview, the title is simply a play on the first two albums, "Heaven and Hell" and "Mob Rules".

This set contains the four Black Sabbath albums fronted by Ronnie James Dio: Heaven and Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981), Live Evil (1982) and Dehumanizer (1992). All have been remastered and include new liner notes. "Heaven and Hell" includes some great art work that I've never seen. It was also in the biggest need of mastering, and the new disc sounds great. "Live Evil", which Castle Records edited down from 2 discs to 1 disc at some point (taking out the audience cheers and band talk in between tracks etc.), is now back in its 2 disc entirety. I won't go into detail about these four classic albums themselves. You can find plenty of reviews on them on Amazon.

Some quick history: Dio left Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow in the late 70s, and joined Black Sabbath to make "Heaven and Hell", produced by famous metal album producer Martin Birch. Original drummer Bill Ward left mid-tour and was replaced by Vinny Appice (younger brother of Carmine). They then recorded "Mob Rules". Around this time "Live at Last", a bootleg from 1973, was released without knowledge nor approval from the band. This prompted them to record "Live Evil". Dio and Appice then left to form the band "Dio". They reunited with Black Sabbath in 1992 to make "Dehumanizer" and toured once more before Dio and Appice left the fold once again. All 4 finally reunited 15 years later as the touring band Heaven and Hell.

Now...as much as I love the music, I still think this could have been handled a lot better. This box set does NOT contain:

- LYRICS. "Black Box" not only included all of the lyrics, but AUTHORIZED lyrics! Black Sabbath has a notorious history of not including the lyrics on most of their albums. That means just about all the Black Sabbath lyrics you find on-line or in sheet music books are just GUESSES. They're just by-the-ear transcriptions from some listener. This has led to a lot of ridiculous mistranslations (my favorite is "if an echo darts in dancer" instead of the much more likely "if an echo doesn't answer"). It would have been great if they took the time to do the same here. Some lines have been stumping me for over 20 years!

- B-SIDES. There were a couple of B-sides and extra album tracks released at some point, not to be found here: alternate versions out there of "Mob Rules" (from the movie Heavy Metal), "Time Machine" (from the movie Wayne's World), and "Letters from Earth" that were released separately from the album.

- DEMO & UNRELEASED SONGS. These do exist on the bootleg circuit. However, Black Sabbath has always been extremely picky about releasing such things in general. They didn't release any on "Black Box", and I wasn't expecting them to be here either.

- VIDEO. A little DVD, even if it was just 2 songs, would have been nice. They made a few promo videos back in the day and there's also some live footage out there. But alas, nothing here.

- TRINKETS, PHOTOS, STICKERS, etc. It's just the four jewel cases (one a double disc case) in a flimsy box. That's all. The tracks for the jewel cases are black though, which look nice.

Still, I have to say that it's great to see the Dio years finally being recognized. If you don't have any of these on CD, this is certainly a great deal for 4 albums / 5 discs. I don't know if there are plans on rereleasing the remaining 7 albums in the Sabbath catalog, but we'll see.

August 2, 2008

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