Ronnie James Dio has become the grandfather of heavy metal music
\n– and that is meant in the most respectful of ways. From his stints
\nwith Elf, Rainbow and Black Sabbath to his days as a solo artist
\nwho cultivated some of the genre’s finest musicians, Dio could
\neasily take the easy way out with his music and record albums
\nsimilar to 1982’s
\nHoly Diver<\/i> and thrill his long-time fans.<\/p>\n
Ah, but that would be too easy, one thinks. So Dio chose to
\nrecord the closest thing to a concept album he’s done in his
\ncareer,
\nMagica<\/i>. And while there are pieces on this disc that show
\nwhy Dio is such a legendary singer and songwriter, it’s easy to see
\nwhy concept albums are so tricky to do, as some pieces fall
\nflat.<\/p>\n
\nMagica<\/i> reunites Dio with several former band members –
\nguitarist Craig Goldy (who took over the guitar chores on
\nDream Evil<\/i>), bassist Jimmy Bain (whose four-string work
\nhelped to shape the sound of Dio’s early solo works) and drummer
\nSimon Wright (who left AC\/DC to provide the trap work for
\nLock Up The Wolves<\/i>). What is disappointing is that none of
\nthese musicians really steps up to the plate and demonstrates just
\nwhy they are so respected on their instruments. Bain’s bass work
\nespecially disappoints – and I’ll freely admit I was hoping to hear
\nsome of the work like he did on the song “The Last In Line” to
\nreally jazz up these pieces.<\/p>\n
Dio himself is in fine voice throughout
\nMagica<\/i>, and while he might not be reaching for the trademark
\nshrieks he once was able to do, time has added almost a more
\nsinister edge to his vocals. With some of the subject matter, this
\nturns out to be the perfect voice for Dio.<\/p>\n
Musically, though,
\nMagica<\/i> runs hot and cold. It takes far too long for the
\nenergy level to get turned up on this disc, starting with two
\ninterludes (“Discovery” and “Magica Theme”) before coasting into
\nthe slow-lane-tempoed “Lord Of The Last Day”. It takes nearly a
\nquarter of the album for Dio and crew to really get things cooking
\non tracks like “Fever Dreams,” “Turn To Stone” and “Challis (Marry
\nThe Devil’s Daughter)” – and even these tracks take some time for
\nthe listener to warm up to.<\/p>\n
The real creative spark musically starts with the hard rock
\nballad “As Long As It’s Not About Love,” a track that allows Dio
\nsome room to expand his singing range. And if you don’t think this
\nis the kind of song that Dio should be doing, give it a good hard
\nlisten and see if it doesn’t change your mind. The following track,
\n“Losing My Insanity,” is the perfect follow-up that cranks the
\nintensity level up to just the right pitch.<\/p>\n
While I understand that Dio needed to complete the story that
\ntakes place in the songs (a story I’m still having troubles
\nfollowing), I question whether we really needed the two reprises –
\none of “Magica,” one of “Lord Of The Last Day” – to close out the
\nmusical portion of this disc.<\/p>\n
The real highlight on
\nMagica<\/i> is the 18-minute narrative featuring Dio telling the
\nstory of “Magica” – a tale that convinces me that if Dio ever chose
\nto start writing science-fiction books, he’d be a best-seller. It’s
\nan engrossing tale between good and evil (not surprising, looking
\nat the body of Dio’s work), but the ending might be surprising to
\npeople. Normally, this kind of stuff bores me, but Dio makes things
\nsound so convincing that it works – and 18 minutes passes far too
\nquickly.<\/p>\n
Listening to the narrative helps to put some of the contexts of
\nthe songs into perspective, but the ovall theme behind
\nMagica<\/i>‘s songs is still a tough one to follow. If you drop
\nthe idea of trying to follow the story behind the music, then
\nyou’re left with a slightly above average Dio album. If you
\napproach it as a concept album, you’re probably going to be a
\nlittle disappointed. And I’m not faulting Dio for this; in all my
\nyears of listening to music, I’ve heard only a handful of artists
\nget concept albums right.<\/p>\n
\nMagica<\/i> is a decent enough outing from Dio and crew, but it
\ndoes leave you with the feeling that the band in general could have
\ndone something spectacular with this disc. Why they didn’t, I’ll
\nnever comprehend. As for the songs, Dio has a knack for telling
\nstories, but he might be better off focusing on the music than the
\nstories behind the tunes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6034],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36542","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dio","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36542"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36542"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}