During my heavy-metal appreciation-development years (read junior high and high school), I was drawn to doom-laden guitars of Black Sabbath and speed-metal pioneers Megadeth.
While I have listened to Black Sabbath during Ozzy Osbourne's leaner years in the '70s, I also liked what the band did with new lead singer Ronnie James Dio on the "Heaven & Hell" album, which hit the charts in 1980. That album and its follow-up, "Mob Rules," mixed the trademark doom-and-gloom Sabbath style with the mysticism of Dio's lyrics and vocals.
It was some major empowerment material for an insecure 100-pound nerd.
I remember when that lineup released the live album "Live Evil" in 1983. My mother wanted to buy my sister and me a present for Easter. She gave me a choice between an album or a book. I think I was the only kid on my block whose mother bought him a Black Sabbath album for Easter.
Anyway, in 1983, a new band named Metallica had released an album called "Kill 'em All." It was released a few months after original guitarist/lyricist Dave Mustaine was kicked out because of his aggressive substance abuse.
Mustaine, in turn, created another band, Megadeth, and released a blistering debut album, "Killing Is My Business ... and Business Is Good." I had that original album on vinyl and loved the track "Mechanix," which, as most metalheads know, is the original version of Metallica's "Four Horsemen."
Fast-forward to last week. I opened two packages on my desk, which prompted an air-guitar solo while jumping around the office. Those two packages contained Megadeth's live album "That One Night," and another album called "Live in Radio City Music Hall" by a band called Heaven & Hell, which is, in reality, the Dio-fronted lineup of the early-'80s Black Sabbath.
While I have a love/hate relationship with live albums (although I still love "Live Evil" to this day), I had been looking forward to these two albums. Both double-CD collections, which are also available on DVD, are packed with nostalgic metal anthems and some new and shiny weapons of musical destruction.
Both releases are mixed and mastered in clean, razor-sharp headbanging glory. And both show how the elder statesmen of metal can still crank it out (regardless of what Tenacious D sang about in the satirical tune "Dio").
With Heaven & Hell, the band had to change its name to separate itself from the Osbourne/Sabbath reunion, and the disc only features Dio-era songs, which were recorded at New York's Radio City Music Hall earlier this year.
Old favorites include the driving guitarist of "Mob Rules," "Lady Evil" (my favorite Dio-voiced Sabbath tune) and "Neon Nights."
Dynamic arrangements of "Sign of the Southern Cross," "Children of the Sea," "Falling Off the Edge of the World" and the namesake track "Heaven and Hell" are CD highlights, as are the more recent offerings "The Devil Cried," "I" and "Shadow of the Wind."
Dio's voice is still strong, while the band — guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terry "Geezer" Butler and drummer Vinny Appice — is as tight as it was more than 20 years ago.
Which brings me to Megadeth's "That One Night."
This concert was recorded at the Obras Sanitarias Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2005. Megadeth always had a loyal following in Argentina and this album shows his fans' devotion. They scream the lyrics and even vocalize with the guitar riffs.
Classic staccato grinds of "Tornado of Souls," "Hangar 18" and the crowd favorite "Peace Sells" are lined up with mainstream-mosh anthems "Skin of My Teeth," "Symphony of Destruction" and "A Tout le Monde."
The new stuff — "Blackmail the Universe," "Kick the Chair" and "Something That I'm Not" — stands eye-to-eye with Mustaine's angry rant, "In My Darkest Hour."
No "Mechanix," though.
But that's OK. Both Heaven & Hell and Megadeth still have a lot to say. And by the sound of these CDs, these guys still have fresh blood cruising through their veins, with no clue of dying just yet.
E-mail: scott@desnews.com