MetalClassic Rock
Tony Iommi has released “Stormwatcher”, the second advance from “From The Dark”, which comes out on 23 October through BMG. It arrives with an animated video of a ship caught in a storm, and it sits fifth of eight on the record. The first single was “World Alone”, out on 29 July, which also got a seven-inch pressing with the instrumental version on the B-side.
Norwegian singer Jørn Lande fronts it and shares the writing credits on all eight songs with Iommi. The rest of the line-up is Becky Baldwin on bass and Karl Brazil on drums, and Iommi produced it with Mike Exeter, who is also credited as co-writer and engineer.
“It’s an album we’ve really enjoyed making,” Iommi says. “We’re not trying to prove anything.”
The standard edition and the vinyl carry the eight tracks — “Over The Violent Sun”, “Black Times”, “World Alone”, “Beyond The Dead”, “Stormwatcher”, “Death Wake”, “Return Of The Arbalist” and “Legacy” — and the deluxe CD adds two pieces Iommi had already put out on their own: “Scent Of Dark”, from 2022, and an extended version of 2024’s “Deified”. The vinyl comes as a double LP at 45rpm in four colours.
It’s the third record Iommi has put his own name to, twenty-one years after “Fused”, which dates from 2005. The one before that, “Iommi”, is from 2000.
Text by Roger Estivill