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This HAS GOT to be one of the greatest heavy metal albums EVER!!!
As far as I'm concerned, this record is on par with Paranoid, Blizzard of Ozz, British Steel, Back in Black, Machine Head, Number of the Beast, or any other hard rock/ heavy metal classic that you might care to mention.
Indeed, after increasingly high profile gigs with Elf, Rainbow and Black Sabbath, singer and frontman extraordinaire Ronnie James Dio finally took the plunge as a solo artist (long overdue, to the eyes of many). In doing so, he split the then current incarnation of Black Sabbath, taking drummer Vinny Appice with him. And although this development was a crying shame (as it basically marked the beginning of a downward spiral for Sabbath) in and by itself, the truth is that Dio (the man) himself and heavy metal in general gained a great deal because of it.
Once he found himself out of Sabbath, Ronnie contacted former Rainbow/Wild Horses bassist Jimmy Bain for advice on musicians for a new venture. Bain jumped in (without ever being formally asked to!) and brought along a young, hungry, up-and-coming Irish guitarist named Vivian Campbell and before long, a new band had been formed and was rehearsing the material for their first album, which they soon recorded. With Ronnie's voice as the center piece, the band constructed a solid album through and through, where the vocal melodies are on par with the guitar riffs and placed upon a rock solid rhythmic foundation.
Without being explicitly conceptual, the album dealt with the eternal struggle between good and evil (a recurring subject matter for Ronnie James Dio), while also offering a few detours along the way. I still remember the first time I listened to this album in full (I was already a Sabbath and Rainbow fan, and I had already heard Dio songs such as "We Rock", "Holy Diver" and "Rainbow in the Dark"): it was the perfect marriage of Rainbow's melodic (and symphonic) approach with the monster riffery of Sabbath. I was immediately hooked!
"Holy Diver" opens up with the furious bite of "Stand up and Shout", a vicious, 3 minute ride that allows little time for rationalizing and serves as the perfect intro for the band, almost as a manifest of intention. The sound is monstrous, with Ronnie's voice right in the middle of the action, with Campbell's guitar prowess immediately evident, and the power of the rhythm section is also obvious. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why I love this record so much: the mix is perfect, with all the instruments and the voice clearly present, and not just one of those records where you have to imagine what the bass player is doing. To this day, I think this is one of the better mixed hard rock/metal records ever.
Next is the record's title song: epic, powerful, empowering, grandiose, and yet deceivingly simple and catchy. There are few words to describe it. Its powerful riff is accentuated by the drums and dramatic pauses, which in turn emphasize the power of Ronnie's voice and truly majestic lyrics. And once again, Vivian really displays some earth shattering playing and soloing, a constant throughout the whole album.
"Gipsy" follows, picking up the pace and hitting fast and hard; "Caught in the Middle" is next, and I must say that it is my personal favorite of the album: don't ask me why, I honestly don't know; it is a departure, for sure, since its melodies are somewhat more "cheerful" than the rest, but I absolutely love it, as it also showcases a different side of Vivian's playing, proving that there's more to him than just shredding for the sake of shredding (as was the custom back in the 80's).
"Don't Talk to Strangers" was a surprise the first time I heard it, and it still remains a perennial favorite in live performances to this day: unlike the previous songs that for the most part started with a heavy guitar riff, this one opens with a delicate, soft guitar arpeggio and slowly builds momentum as the bass and the drums come in, only to rip into a nasty riff midway through and morph into a heavy rocker! And to top it all, the song crashes back to its soft beginning before the outro. Awesome!
"Straight through the heart" is another heavy, mid tempo tune that is introduced with a drum break and features another great guitar riff and some more of the dramatic pauses that were used to great effect on the title song. I love the song (in fact, I love the whole album), but I've never understood why (or how), when releasing Dio compilations, this song has outdone "Don't talk..." more than once...not that it isn't good enough for a compilation, but I think "Don't..." is the obvious choice...anyway, the next tune, "Invisible" seemed to repeat, at least at the start, the formula of the "Slow intro, change of pace, heavy riff in the middle" that was used for "Don't...", but ultimately the arrangement is totally different and the song packs quite some punch.
The classic "Rainbow in the Dark" hardly needs any further introduction: without a doubt, one of the forerunners of the "80's heavy metal sound", a perfect marriage of melody and heaviness. As if the proven formula of Dio's melodic vocals meshed with Vivian's guitar ferocity and the rhythm section's powerful pummeling wasn't enough, the song features a prominent synth riff that predates by at least 1 year other similar efforts by countless hard rock/heavy metal bands (Van Halen, anyone?). This song is arguably one of the biggest classics of its era.
And to wrap up, a slow, sinister number called "Shame on the Night". I'll be 100% honest with you: the first time I heard this song, I didn't like it AT ALL. I thought it was totally out of place in an otherwise perfect record. For quite some time, I just couldn't figure it out: it is slow, dark, with no guitar solo and quite plain, really. But that's precisely the beauty of it!!! There was a period when I would listen to this album everyday, but as it often happens, I started listening to other things; then, one day, out of the blue I picked it up again and lo and behold, the song really got to me!!! I still don't know how or why, but it did, and now it is one of my absolute favorites of the Dio catalog.
Bottom Line: This record must be heralded as one of the undisputed classics of the genre, the first of a long line of releases from the master of the dungeons and dragons, and possibly his best (as a solo artist, I mean). Ronnie James Dio himself acknowledges this fact, placing this record on the same pedestal as "Heaven & Hell" and "Rising", the other 2 crown jewels of his career (again, those are his words, not mine). All of that being said, I feel compelled to make an observation here: this records needs an URGENT remastering!!! NOW!!!! I mean, I got the CD to replace my good old tape from back in the day, only to be appalled by its total lack of punch. My tape sounds louder and fuller, for god's sake!!! Now, hold the death threats for a moment, will ya: this is a TECHNICAL issue, it has NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTHING to do with the music, the band, Ronnie or anything/anybody else for that matter!!! It simply means that after all these years of making the transfer from the master tapes to the CD, the album has lost its high fidelity sound and its punch, that's it!!! So Rhino, the ball is in your court. My advice: that we start a petition for the remastering (I hear that the album has in fact been remastered by Vertigo outside of the US). But in the meantime, if you choose to pick this one up, I guarantee you this: you'll be getting more.
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SH, No More Lies!
Want to see the graphs deleted on Steve Hoffman forums comparing this Gold CD ? Want to face "therockman" bad faith "?Here is the graph that was originally moderated on SH forums showing this Audio Fidelity Gold CD against three other different masterings:[...][can still be seen on product's images in poor quality, here on Amazon][comment here if you want me to email you the full-sized]Ever wondered why the poster did not show up anymore? Ever wondered why Steve Hoffman wrote "This thread will reopen in one hour!"? Ever wondered why even Steve Hoffman himself was annoyed by the graph "One guy says that to him it sounds dull, like a blanket thrown over the speakers compared to the other versions and another guy keeps posting a chart about how we boosted the treble on this and it is too bright."?Ever been reading there? [...][search for "Audio Fidelity gold disc problems thread" you should reach IMWAN's thread]Now regarding the CD more in-depth, it is just not what is advertised and that is unacceptable. It's not a compressed mess like many other remasters, but it does not live up to his name, "we used the master tapes and the top end is quite nice, not bright and piercing like previous releases." It's the brightest by far, some people like it because it adds detail, I find the CD quite shrill as far as I am concerned. But the point isn't even there. The point is Steve Hoffman lies and badmouths as much as he can on other releases, while he did used (some, I concur) compresssion (see the link above, listen to the Metallica's DCC releases, to "Waiting For The Sun", open nearly any DCC disc to spot a few, yet inaudible, clipped peaks), and he does smiley face EQ some of his records, and this Holy Diver isn't but one of them.I computed the difference charts using Matlab, see Hoffman literally smiling at you with his bad faith:[can still be seen on product's images in poor quality, here on Amazon][comment here if you want me to email you the full-sized]Ok, now some people will assert "but all other pressings are anti-smiley faced EQ", of course. "He did use the master, we saw him", he probably did, I can't know for sure, but what I do know is that using the master does not prevent him from applying some nice EQ to his hear afterwards (actually, I am not even sure he likes this release himself, he/they may have thought:"for this Heavy Metal release to sell well, it has to bear these boosts").And for the most sceptical (And how could you trust me? So much praise around there in between a few moderated posts on the AF release), there is nothing more easy than to check the EQ curve of this AF CD (there are plenty of posts about it on SH forums if I remember well)!You do not have these japanese pressings I am showing? Then I'll give you a hint about how to compare your bright AFZ 136 (the bass boost does not dwarf the treble boost, the cymbals are piercing!), buy a 5$ original Warner Bross pressing, and you'll be able to demonstrate this simley faced EQ despite what Steve says by saying that all other previous releases are brighter. The WB is weak, I don't like it either, the bass is of course worse (the AF is smiley), but at least is it not piercing.There is nothing arguable about this curve, you can claim that you don't hear it, but this product is not as advertised!Audio Fidelity is getting so far away from transparency, which they try to hide by the strongest moderation ever met on a forum. The result is a mixed bag of good and more than average releases (of course, I still prefer these to most recent products...). My bet is that, if Andy Pearce keeps on doing a great job as he did on Heaven & Hell, we are going to get a definitive version from him, with a much better package as a plus (Audio Fideliy booklets are not DCC's printing quality anymore).
