Fused

Tony Iommi's official collaboration with Deep Purple vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes, Fused, hit stores yesterday. It's a decent album, but I can't say that I'm as overwhelmed with it as a number of people have said in the reviews I've seen.

Sure Tony's guitar sounds as good as ever, and Glenn's voice is more than acceptable. But that magic something I was yearning for isn't there (for me, anyway). Part of it has to do with the songs themselves: a few standouts, like "What You're Living For", have very cool riffage, but the majority of them are not riff based. Sadly, this has been the case with Tony for some time. He often plays some nice guitar lines while the singer takes the helm and carries the song. This would be acceptable if the songs were really killer, but sadly, these aren't (but hell, at least we get guitar solos).

I find my attention wandering as I listen to the album. Perhaps if Glenn's voice was a little more to my liking (he reminds me of Sean Tatler of Diamond Head, and that isn't really a good thing), or the drummer had more pizazz, I'd be more alert. But in the end this album actually reminds me of Sabbath's Dehumanizer (Dio is in great form for this album, but the songs and music that tend to fall flat) or Diamond Head's Death & Progress (their instruments never sounded this cool, but what happened to all the riffs?): a nice effort that doesn't live up to its potential.

My recommendations for hearing Tony experiment and pulling it off: Black Sabbath's "You Won't Change Me" (off Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy) and with Billy Corgan on Iommi's "Black Oblivion" (an absolute killer track).