Tony Iommi has answered the thing every review of From The Dark reaches for. Speaking to Berlin's Star FM, the Black Sabbath guitarist said comparing Jorn Lande to Ronnie James Dio is unfair, and gave a plainer reason for the hire than the one people assume.
"I just liked Jorn's voice," he said. "That's the problem, really. Everybody's gonna compare something, and it's unfair, really, because Jorn is Jorn, and he was a fan of Dio anyway. But Jorn sings the way he does. He's got that type of voice, and that's the sort of voice I wanted for this album. I like his voice. It's powerful."
The two of them nearly worked together two decades earlier, which Lande described himself earlier this week: demos in 2004 and 2005 that went nowhere.
Iommi also said the record was never meant to have a singer at all. After writing two instrumental pieces for the fragrance house Xerjoff, he started an instrumental album and got four rough ideas down, a couple of them acoustic, before setting them aside and deciding on a band and a vocalist instead. He says he will finish those pieces at some point, possibly with orchestration.
From The Dark came out on 23 October through BMG.