HEAR TONY IOMMI'S DOOMY NEW SOLO INSTRUMENTAL, ‘DEIFIED'

Three years after releasing the instrumental, "Scent of Dark," Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has released another solo song, also an instrumental titled "Deified." The song begins with Iommi's signature doleful blues soloing before kicking into a doomy groove. Then in comes a classical choir, recalling Black Sabbath's orchestral-metal interlude "Supertzar," off 1975's Sabotage, which the band used to open concerts throughout the late Seventies. "Deified" sounds grimmer, though, and Iommi's solos throughout plumb dour new emotions.

A music video, all in black and white, of course. It shows a sketch of a child studying and envisioning a monolithic man, who grows in stature as he's deified, assaulted by aircrafts until it's chipped apart, recalling the lyrics to Sabbath's "Iron Man." It ends with an image of Iommi's new cologne, also called Deified, which perfumier Xerjoff is producing.

Iommi recorded the tune with his longtime collaborator Mike Exeter on keyboards and producing; Karl Brazil played drums and Laurence Cottle provided bass. Ben Andrew came up with the orchestration. Iommi discussed how the song came together and the musicians' input, in a video interview with Xerjoff's Sergio Momo.

In 2021, Iommi told Rolling Stone he would love to make more instrumental music. "As you know, I've got loads of riffs," he said at the time. "It's just trying to now get around to doing them."

The song arrives as rumors swirl about a possible Black Sabbath reunion concert in the band's hometown of Birmingham, England. Earlier this week, the town's football club, Aston Villa, released a video in which Ozzy Osbourne phones up Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler and says, "Let's play Villa Park." The video essentially is an ad for Aston Villa's collaboration with Adidas and doesn't feature Iommi or drummer Bill Ward.

But Ward fueled speculation on Thursday with an open letter addressing the rumors. "I'm in for playing some of everyone's old favorites," he wrote on Instagram. "Loved playing them then, I'd love to play them one last time. I'm not going to talk about my health publicly except to say, every day I'm pretty good for 76 years old, I'm active musically every day, and I have a very busy and gratifying life."

Last month, Butler speculated that Osbourne wanted to do the gig. "Ozzy was hoping to finish it all off next year back in Aston, at the Aston Villa [football stadium]," he said in an interview with Eddie Trunk, according to Guitar World. "I'm definitely up for it, to finish the whole thing off."