A confession: It’s been a long, long time since I have listened
\nto any of Ronnie James Dio’s solo work.<\/p>\n
When I was about ten years younger, I was banging my head to
\nalbums like
\nHoly Diver<\/i> and
\nThe Last In Line<\/i> just like the rest of my buddies in school.
\nBut for some reason, I just lost interest in Dio, especially after
\nSacred Heart<\/i> and
\nDream Evil<\/i> failed to impress me.<\/p>\n
But I’ve recently become interested in Dio’s work again, for two
\nreasons. First, loyal reader Trent Nakagawa responded to my
\nfive-year search for a copy of AC\/DC’s “Jailbreak” video – and was
\nnice enough to throw on other videos from MTV’s “Headbanger’s
\nBall,” including “The Last In Line”. Second, I got a chance to
\nlisten to Dio’s first full-length live solo album,
\nInferno: Last In Live<\/i>, and was amazed at how good he still
\nsounds.<\/p>\n
The star players in Dio’s band are long gone (save for drummer
\nVinny Appice), and guitarist Tracy G and bassist Larry Dennison
\nmight not have the flash that some former members of the band
\nshowed, but Dio has assembled a crew of musicians, a lineup which
\ndebuted on Dio’s last album
\nAngry Machines<\/i>, that holds its own quite well. And Dio
\nhimself has lost little – if any – of his vocal abilities, never
\nmind the fact it’s been almost 20 years since he took over for Ozzy
\nOsbourne in Black Sabbath.<\/p>\n
Recorded in New York City, Chicago and Schaumburg (a Chicago
\nsuburb I know quite well), you can tell that Dio isn’t playing to
\nMadison Square Garden. But the truth is that the club atmosphere
\nseems to work better on this album – it’s more personal, and Dio
\neven seems to be more at ease with it, judging from his on-stage
\nrapport with the audience.<\/p>\n
Many of the hits are here, and for the most part, they sound
\npretty close to the way you remember their studio counterparts
\nsounded. “Don’t Talk To Strangers” is a wonderful surprise on this
\nset, a track that I remember well from the local metal show on a
\nbrokered station. Dio covers most of the area of his career that
\npeople have followed religiously (oops…), from Black Sabbath
\n(“Heaven And Hell,” “The Mob Rules”), Rainbow (“Mistreated (Catch
\nThe Rainbow)”, “Man On The Silver Mountain”) and most facets of his
\nsolo career (“We Rock”, “Holy Diver” “Double Monday”).<\/p>\n
What is surprising to me is that even the newer songs sound like
\nthey’re vintage Dio, meaning whatever stylistic changes he was
\nmaking around the time of
\nDream Evil<\/i> he discarded – smart move. And while the
\nperformances aren’t as flashy as one would expect some to be (Tracy
\nG’s guitar solos are rather subdued), the resulting sound is a bit
\nmore natural. You can then understand why Dio never went away
\nduring metal’s decline.<\/p>\n
Clocking in at about 80 minutes over two discs,
\nInferno: Last In Live<\/i> tends to be a quick listen – I was
\nsurprised to have the album finish just as I was really getting
\ninto it. But then again, maybe it’s better that Dio didn’t
\noverstate his case on this one.<\/p>\n
If you loved Dio’s early solo work or you just got into him
\nrecently thanks to
\nAngry Machines<\/i>, then
\nInferno: Last In Live<\/i> is a must-own for you, and is one of
\nthe better live albums I’ve heard in over 15 years of collecting
\nmusic. After listening to this, you know I’ll be searching the
\nPierce Archives for my well-worn copies of Dio’s earlier works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6034],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38843","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dio","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38843","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=38843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38843"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}