Tony Iommi has once again teamed up with luxury perfume makers Xerjoff to deliver a new signature scent: “Deified.” To celebrate the metal icon’s latest perfume, the iconic guitarist has also just wafted a chunky theme song our way. And you know what? This sure smells like one of Iommi’s.
While occasionally brushed by intense, Omen-styled choir vocals, for all intents and purposes, “Deified” is Iommi’s show. The tune is an instru-metal workout of Sabbath-leaning minor key menace, with Iommi wrenching gloom-blues leads and signature heaviness out of his jet black SG.
“Deified” also finds Iommi working alongside Laurence Cottle, who played bass on Sabbath’s Headless Cross, and has also appeared on other Iommi solo recordings.
The video mixes footage of Iommi and Cottle performing the track with scratchy animated scenes. The narrative is explained in a statement as “a profound and powerful story that lies behind the palindromic nature of Deified.”
You could argue it’s likewise about how actions have consequences. In it, a young boy starts folding up paper airplanes and letting them fly, before being whisked into an imaginary wonderworld where an idealized man progressively gets chipped away by the rapid-fire gunspray of a gang of fighter jets. You can check it out up above.
Deified is described as an “intense scent,” which mixes accents of leather, spice, saffron, cinnamon, patchouli and more. The perfume follows Iommi and Xerjoff’s 2021 “Monkey Special” partnership. You can order either scent here.
In other Black Sabbath-related news, it was also revealed this week that drummer Bill Ward is seemingly back on-board for a reunion with his old bandmates, should the opportunity arise.
The founding skinsman famously exited the band in 2012 over a contractual dispute, and did not record or tour behind the following year’s 13 full-length. Ozzy Osbourne later said that the record “wasn’t really a Sabbath album” because of this.
That said, Ward’s now stirring up reunion chatter in a post on his social media yesterday (July 25th), which weighs in on the possibility of getting back together with Iommi, Osbourne and Geezer Butler.
“I’m in for playing some of everyone’s old favorites. Loved playing them then, I’d love to play them one last time,” he wrote, adding: “I’m not going to talk about my health publicly except to say, everyday I’m pretty good for 76 years old, I’m active musically every day, and I have a very busy and gratifying life.”
The other members of Black Sabbath have yet to publicly respond to Ward’s latest comments.