Written By Caine Blackthorn
There are collaborations assembled in conference rooms, negotiated through managers and announced with enough promotional machinery to launch a small satellite. Then there is Tony Iommi and Brian May.
For more than half a century, the architects behind Black Sabbath and Queen have drifted in and out of each other’s musical worlds, trading riffs, guest appearances, guitars and apparently a considerable amount of time sitting around Iommi’s house with instruments nearby.
Now that friendship has produced another piece of recorded history. May appears on “Death Wake,” a track from Iommi’s forthcoming solo album From the Dark, arriving October 23 through BMG. It is Iommi’s first proper solo album since Fused in 2005, making new material from the man who essentially taught the electric guitar how to sound threatening an event by itself.
But “Death Wake” comes with an additional attraction. Brian May has entered the darkness.
Tony Iommi and Brian May Return to the Studio
Iommi and May first crossed paths in the early 1970s while working in neighboring studios. According to Iommi, they simply hit it off. More than five decades later, not much appears to have changed.
Speaking recently about their friendship, Iommi estimated they have known each other for somewhere around 56 to 58 years. He described May as his best friend and said May and the late Eddie Van Halen were the two guitarists he consistently stayed in contact with over the years.
The circumstances behind “Death Wake” sound almost absurdly casual considering the people involved. May came to Iommi’s house. Guitars appeared. They started playing. Iommi told May he was going to play on the track. That was apparently that.
May recorded the solo for “Death Wake” in Iommi’s home studio, adding one of rock’s most immediately recognizable guitar voices to the album. Iommi was pleased enough that he invited May to play on additional songs. May declined.
Not because he didn’t want to play, but because he considered From the Dark Iommi’s album and didn’t want to intrude on it. Iommi recalled May essentially telling him that his own solos were already good and he didn’t need May playing all over the record.
In an industry where guest appearances can become exercises in logo collection, there is something wonderfully unmanufactured about that exchange.
Two enormously influential guitarists. No competition. No ceremonial passing of the torch. No attempt to cram both names onto every available inch of the record sleeve. Just one friend showing up for another.
When the Red Special Meets the Father of Heavy Metal
The musical pairing is particularly fascinating because Iommi and May occupy radically different corners of the guitar universe.
Iommi built riffs that seemed to drag themselves out of the earth. May made guitars sound orchestral.
Black Sabbath’s earliest records established much of the vocabulary heavy metal still speaks today: down-tuned weight, ominous intervals, enormous riffs and an atmosphere that made rock music suddenly feel genuinely dangerous.
May went somewhere entirely different with Queen. His layered harmonies, melodic phrasing and unmistakable tone turned the guitar into something capable of behaving like an entire ensemble.
You can identify either player within seconds. Iommi himself has praised exactly that quality in May, previously calling him one of his “rock gods” and pointing to the individuality of May’s sound and playing.
There is even a wonderful demonstration of how deeply that identity lives in May’s hands.
Iommi once recalled May playing through equipment that wasn’t his usual setup, including a Gibson, and still sounding unmistakably like Brian May. The gear changed but the guitarist didn’t.
This Is Not Their First Trip Into the Darkness
“Death Wake” adds another chapter to a collaboration that stretches back decades.
May famously contributed a guest guitar solo to Black Sabbath’s “When Death Calls,” released on Headless Cross in 1989.
That performance already answered the question of what happens when Queen’s guitarist is dropped into Black Sabbath territory.
He doesn’t suddenly become Tony Iommi, he remains Brian May. And somehow it works.
May returned years later on Iommi’s self-titled 2000 solo album, contributing guitar to “Goodbye Lament,” a track that also featured Dave Grohl. Their connection has continued away from official releases as well.
Footage released in 2024 showed the pair casually jamming Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” while filming the Greatest Guitar Riffs documentary. Iommi held down his immortal rhythm while May did what Brian May does best, sending his own unmistakable lead voice across one of metal’s foundational riffs. There have also been guitars.
Because apparently ordinary Christmas presents are unacceptable when your friends helped invent Queen and Black Sabbath.
In 2025, May gave Iommi a specially made left-handed Red Special replica, a project reportedly two years in the making. The guitar incorporated touches inspired by Iommi’s own legendary instruments while adapting May’s famous homemade design for his left-handed friend. That might be the most guitar-player friendship imaginable.
What Happened to That Iommi-May Riffs Album?
For years, the possibility of something much larger has hovered around the pair.
Iommi has accumulated an enormous archive of riffs and unfinished musical ideas, and the possibility of doing an album with May has surfaced repeatedly. Back in 2017, Iommi confirmed the two had discussed the idea when May visited his house, saying a project with him was something he would enjoy doing.
The tantalizing concept never developed into the full Tony Iommi/Brian May album guitar obsessives have dreamed about. At least not yet. Perhaps that is part of what makes “Death Wake” interesting.
These two don’t appear particularly interested in forcing a collaboration simply because the combination would make headlines. Their musical encounters happen when they happen.
A jam here, a guest solo there. Just a guitar exchanged between friends.
Another recording quietly added to a relationship that has survived decades of touring, albums, changing musical landscapes and the general insanity that accompanies being responsible for two of the biggest bands in rock history.
From the Dark Brings Iommi Back
May may be the marquee guest, but From the Dark isn’t constructed as a celebrity parade. Quite the opposite.
The eight-track album pairs Iommi with Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande, who co-wrote the songs, alongside Mercyful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin and drummer Karl Brazil. Iommi co-produced the record with longtime collaborator Mike Exeter.
And then there is Brian May, the exception. His appearance on “Death Wake” doesn’t feel like stunt casting. It feels like the continuation of a conversation that began somewhere in the early 1970s and apparently never really stopped. That may be the best part of this entire story.
Heavy metal’s founding riffmaster and one of rock’s most distinctive melodic guitarists have spent more than fifty years occasionally wandering into one another’s orbit, plugging in and seeing what happens.
No rivalry or elaborate supergroup necessary. Sometimes Brian May simply turns up at Tony Iommi’s house with a guitar and every once in a while, somebody remembers to hit record.
TRACKLIST
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
About The Author
Caine Blackthorn writes music news, trending topics, commentary, and feature pieces for Metal Lair with a focus on the shifting culture surrounding rock and heavy metal. From rising ticket prices and touring collapse to legacy artists, industry absurdity, and the changing soul of live music, his work blends sharp observation with the grit, humor, and frustration of the scene itself. Whether covering modern chaos or metal history, Caine approaches heavy music as something lived through, not simply reported on.
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