Tony Iommi's From the Dark Is Out: First Solo Album in 21 Years

Tony Iommi's From the Dark is out now. The Black Sabbath guitarist's new solo album was released worldwide on Friday, October 23, 2026, through BMG. It's his first solo record since Fused in 2005, so it ends a 21-year gap, and it arrives a little over a year after Black Sabbath's farewell show, Back to the Beginning, in Birmingham.

TGP covered the announcement of From the Dark back in July, when Iommi launched the record with a livestream from his hometown and premiered the first single, "World Alone." Now the album is out and the first reviews are in. For guitar players, the headline is simple: this is a riff record built around Iommi's guitar.

What's on From the Dark

The standard album has eight tracks:

1. Over the Violent Sun 2. Black Times 3. World Alone 4. Beyond the Dead 5. Stormwatcher 6. Death Wake 7. Return of the Arbalist 8. Legacy

The deluxe CD media book adds two bonus tracks: "Scent of Dark" and an extended version of "Deified." Both are instrumentals Iommi first released alongside his fragrance collaborations with the perfume house Xerjoff: "Scent of Dark" in 2021 and "Deified" in 2024. On vinyl, the album is spread across a double LP cut at 45rpm.

Iommi co-produced the album with Mike Exeter, his longtime engineer, producer and co-writer, whose work with him goes back to The DEP Sessions era. Iommi kept his own pitch short. "It's an album we've really enjoyed making," he said in the announcement. "We're not trying to prove anything – it's a great album, it rocks!"

The Band: Jørn Lande, Becky Baldwin and Karl Brazil

Norwegian singer Jørn Lande sings on every track and shares the writing credit on every song. His link to Iommi goes back to 2010, when he sang with Heaven & Hell at the High Voltage festival in London, at the tribute to Ronnie James Dio.

The rhythm section is bassist Becky Baldwin and drummer Karl Brazil. Brazil has worked with Feeder and Robbie Williams, and he drummed on "Deified." Baldwin has said she first thought the invitation to play on the album was a hoax.

That Dio connection shapes how reviewers hear the album. Both Kerrang! and Louder place From the Dark closer to the Dio-era Sabbath and Heaven & Hell records than to the Ozzy years.

Brian May Guests on "Death Wake"

The album has one guest guitarist: Queen's Brian May plays a solo on "Death Wake." Iommi and May have been friends for decades, and we went into why May is the only guest guitarist on the record in August.

In Louder's review, Neil Jeffries writes that "Death Wake, featuring a lead break by Iommi's old mate Brian May, boasts superbly syncopated riffage as it rises and falls."

Watch the "World Alone" Video

"World Alone" was the first single. Its official video is set in a retro-futuristic, dystopian world, and the album's second video is for "Stormwatcher."

What the First Reviews Say About the Guitar

TGP hasn't reviewed From the Dark. Here is what the early reviews focus on.

Kerrang! (4/5). Olly Thomas calls the album "a reaffirmation of the man's elemental power and enduring importance." He writes that opener "Over the Violent Sun" "kicks things off with an instantly satisfying Iommi riff that perfectly captures his influence on metal in perpetuity." He hears "World Alone" as "a weighty proto-thrash chugger," and calls closer "Legacy" "a spellbinding conclusion."

Louder (Classic Rock). Neil Jeffries sums the album up for guitar players: "all you need to know about From The Dark is that Tony Iommi plays guitar." He describes "World Alone" as "a brutal boogie that is the closest this album gets to upbeat" and says "Stormwatcher" chugs along "on a superior riff. Great solo, too." He saves his biggest praise for "Legacy," which mixes "a mournful bridge," "an electric solo and, briefly, Spanish guitar," and which he calls "absolute killer, gold-standard Iommi." His overall verdict: "the unmistakable sound of That Guitar and the bludgeon of Those Riffs can only mean that the fire still blazes."

The official announcement also mentions a down-tuned riff, saying the opener features "a classic, driving down-tuned guitar riff from Tony Iommi."

The Tone Behind the Riffs

If you're new to Iommi, the sound reviewers are reacting to has a well-known history. After a factory accident as a teenager, he lost the tips of two fingers on his fretting hand and kept playing with homemade fingertip caps. That led to the slacker, down-tuned approach that helped give Black Sabbath its weight. We told that story in Tony Iommi: The Man Who Lost His Fingertips and Invented Heavy Metal.

For most of his career, his signature sound has come from a left-handed Gibson SG through a loud amp. He's spent decades with Laney, and he has a long line of signature guitars. The riffs themselves are written in a simple, heavy style: few notes, lots of space, and every note landing with weight. For an example, see our breakdown of Iron Man, the riff that taught guitar to lumber.

That's what makes a new Iommi album news for guitar players. At 78, he's still writing in that style rather than repeating his catalogue. Around the release of Scent of Dark in 2021, he said he had "four or five hundred" unused riffs saved on his phone.

The Eddie Van Halen Story Iommi Told This Week

In the run-up to release, Iommi gave Planet Rock a story that guitar players will love. As reported by Guitar Player on October 22, he explained how Eddie Van Halen ended up on a Black Sabbath record without a credit.

In 1993, Van Halen called Iommi hoping to meet up. "He called me up and I said, 'We're rehearsing tomorrow. I can't,'" Iommi recalled. Van Halen's reply was "Oh, I'd love to do that." So Iommi picked him up at his hotel, they stopped at a music shop to buy one of Van Halen's own signature guitars, and they headed to the house the band rented for rehearsals.

"We started playing a new song we were working on," Iommi said (via Guitar World). "He started playing a solo." That solo ended up on "Evil Eye," from Sabbath's 1994 album Cross Purposes. Contract issues kept Van Halen's name off the credits, but the solo stayed on the record. It's the only known studio collaboration between the two players. Iommi has also said there's a tape of the two of them jamming on Sabbath riffs somewhere in his house.

For more on EVH, read our piece Remembering Eddie Van Halen: Six Years On, the Guitar Still Speaks His Language.

Why From the Dark Matters

Iommi has spent the past year saying goodbye to Black Sabbath. The band played its final show in July 2025, weeks before Ozzy Osbourne died, and Iommi has since spoken about his final conversation with Ozzy. Nobody would have blamed him for stopping there.

Instead, he has released a new album of new songs, with a new singer and a new rhythm section, and the first reviews keep coming back to the guitar.

From the Dark is out now on BMG on streaming services, CD and double vinyl.

Sources

• Tony Iommi official site, "From the Dark Album Announced" (July 29, 2026): https://www.iommi.com/from-the-dark-album-announced/
• Blabbermouth, "Black Sabbath Legend Tony Iommi Announces New Solo Album 'From The Dark'" (July 29, 2026): https://blabbermouth.net/news/black-sabbath-legend-tony-iommi-announces-new-solo-album-from-the-dark
• Pitchfork, "Tony Iommi Announces First Solo Album in 21 Years" (July 29, 2026): https://pitchfork.com/story/tommy-iommi-announces-first-solo-album-in-21-years-from-the-dark/
• Kerrang!, Olly Thomas, "Album review: Tony Iommi – From The Dark" (October 23, 2026): https://www.kerrang.com/album-review-tony-iommi-from-the-dark
• Louder / Classic Rock, Neil Jeffries, "Tony Iommi: From The Dark album review" (October 22, 2026): https://www.loudersound.com/music/albums/tony-iommi-from-the-dark
• Guitar Player, Phil Weller, "How Eddie Van Halen crashed a Black Sabbath rehearsal" (October 22, 2026): https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/tony-iommi-on-jamming-with-eddie-van-halen-and-working-with-rick-rubin