Tony Iommi thrilled with Dio-years anthology

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is thrilled with the band's latest release, which spotlights the time when Ronnie James Dio was the singer. It's called Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, and in addition to a selection of material from the past, the album also has three new songs that were written in the last few months for the project. Iommi told us that he's happy to showcase Dio's contribution to the Sabbath legacy in this fashion, and the band is also thrilled to have new material to play live: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "I think it's great, because this era of the band -- certainly since we've been back with Ozzy (Osbourne) -- 10 years of not really hearing about this lineup. And a lot of people have asked about doing an album, and I think it's great now that we can actually go out and play these tracks, and have an album out again of these tracks, with some fresher stuff."

The Dio Years sold almost 21,000 copies in it's first week out, putting it at Number 54 on the Billboard 200 chart.

While they're Black Sabbath on the album the group -- which also includes Geezer Butler on bass and Vinny Appice on drums -- is touring this year as Heaven And Hell. They recently finished up a series of dates that took them across Canada and ended with a DVD shoot at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Their next U.S. run of shows begins April 22nd in Phoenix.
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