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\n\tSometimes Tony Iommi<\/a> needs to remind himself to write songs that sound a little more upbeat. \u201cI tend to always start off with the doomy stuff,\u201d the former Black Sabbath<\/a> guitarist says with a chuckle on a phone call from his home in England. \u201cIt always has been that way. I just get absorbed with doomy riffs. It\u2019s a feeling I get when I play something heavy and powerful. I still like the up-tempo stuff, of course, though.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWorld Alone,\u201d the first single off From the Dark<\/em>, Iommi\u2019s upcoming solo album \u2014 his first in more than two decades, due Oct. 23 \u2014 is decidedly up-tempo. But it\u2019s still heavy. The song finds the guitarist, 78, playing a walloping riff and a snarling solo, recalling Black Sabbath\u2019s cutting Mob Rules <\/em>album but with a unique, modern twist thanks to vocalist J\u00f8rn Lande\u2019s gutsy wailing and apocalyptic lyrics. The song and the seven others on the album, which only sound heavier and more menacing, show how Iommi is doing his own thing apart from Black Sabbath\u2019s legacy but still staying within the doomy world of sound he began constructing nearly 60 years ago.<\/p>\n \n\tOver the past year, ever since Black Sabbath played their final gig at Ozzy Osbourne<\/a>\u2018s farewell concert<\/a>, Back to the Beginning, Iommi has kept a mostly low profile. That\u2019s because he\u2019s been fine-tuning ideas he\u2019d been honing for at least half a decade. The seeds for the album sprang from two instrumental songs, 2021\u2019s \u201cScent of Dark\u201d<\/a> and 2024\u2019s \u201cDeified,\u201d<\/a> that he recorded to release along with his own designer perfume. As the songs came together, he felt like he wanted a proper, well-rounded band backing him for this outing.<\/p>\n \n\tHis first solo album was 2000\u2019s Iommi<\/em>, if you don\u2019t count 1986\u2019s Seventh Star<\/em>, which was a solo album that Black Sabbath\u2019s record label credited to the band, or the string of Sabbath albums on which Iommi was the only original member. The Iommi <\/em>album featured singers such as Billy Corgan and Henry Rollins and various backing musicians on each track, while The 1996 DEP Sessions <\/em>(2004) and Fused <\/em>(2005) both featured former Deep Purple frontman Glenn Hughes singing.<\/p>\n