DEHUMANIZER

Let's just get one thing clear right away: robotic grim reapers shooting lightning bolts out of their fingertips to transform victims in cyborgs is 100% awesome. If I were running for president I would make this the foundation of my political platform. There is no extreme that Dio's lyrics can go to that would make me lose interest; I love camp, absurdity, and genre niches in my heavy metal - but with that being said, metal that consists of bland chugging, repetitive song structures, and overly similar vocal delivery does get old in a hurry, which is exactly what holds Dehumanizer back.

This is not a prog-related Black Sabbath album. It's a straightforward heavy metal release indicative of the early '90's (in that it's pretty bad; the 90's are to heavy metal what the 80's were to prog rock). The Black Sabbath sound peeks its head up every now again, thanks to Geezer's upfront and fuzzy bass, as well as Iommi's signature guitar, but by in large this album sounds overwhelmingly similar to a Dio release, and unfortunately not one of his better ones. Dio's vocals sound as if they're stuck in the same register, and actually come across as sloppy. I'm a huge Dio fan but this is definitely him singing in decline.

Note that the lyrical content of this album has nothing to do with fantasy tropes that is clichely used to describe Dio's writing. These songs are about that nature of evil, self destruction, and robotic grim reapers shooting lightning bolts out of their fingertips to transform victims into cybogs, which as we've established, is awesome.

Dehumanizer will appeal only to dedicated fans of the musicians involved, and even those who have rated it highly here at ProgArchives have admitted that its not as good as the Black Sabbath + Dio classics Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. Dehumanizer has a few good songs hidden in the mostly bland ones, but only fans will want to slug through to find them.

Songwriting: 2 - Instrumental Performances: 3 - Lyrics/Vocals: 2 - Style/Emotion/Replay: 2