After three successful albums fronting his self-named band, Ronnie James Dio was at a crossroads.<\/p>\n
His lead guitarist Vivian Campbell was no longer in the band, and had been replaced with Craig Goldy, formerly of Rough Cutt and Giuffria. But the new lineup hadn\u2019t recorded a full album yet, and as usual, the music industry\u2019s motto was to keep new product in front of the fans before they forget about you.<\/p>\n
From that scene was born Intermission<\/i>, a six-song live EP that featured one new studio track. Like most of Dio\u2019s output to this point, it\u2019s good, but it could have been better.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s knock out the studio track, \u201cTime To Burn,\u201d first. Included because Dio wanted some iteration of the new band featured on the disc, this gives a slight taste as to what Dream Evil<\/i> would offer the listener shortly afterwards. Is it a great track? No, but it\u2019s better than a lot of the stuff that was on Sacred Heart<\/i>. For his part, Goldy is a competent guitarist, but doesn\u2019t have the same swagger in his playing that Campbell had\u2014and the difference is noticeable.<\/p>\n
The five live tracks\u2014one of which is a medley combining \u201cRock \u2018N\u2019 Roll Children\u201d with two songs from Dio\u2019s time with Rainbow\u2014are the main issue. It\u2019s not that the performances are bad; it\u2019s just that they leave the listener wanting more. This disc could have been developed into a full-length live disc, rather than clocking in at a mere 34 minutes\u2014just under a half hour if you leave off \u201cTime To Burn.\u201d That\u2019s barely enough time for the typical concertgoer to ignore the opening act and hit the concession stands.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know for certain whether Dio was serving as an opening act at this time, or if he was headlining\u2014though the complexity of his stage show suggests he was the headliner by 1986. That alone makes me wonder why more wasn\u2019t released, and why Dio felt he had to sandwich several songs into one longer take.<\/p>\n
What is represented on Intermission<\/i> is good enough to get the listener through. With three of the songs being culled from Sacred Heart<\/i>, you do feel like you\u2019re sitting in the audience, feeling the heat as the flashpots are fired off. Dio himself is in fine voice, and the band (recorded when Campbell was still part of the lineup) sounds tight. But, you\u2019ll wonder why songs like \u201cHoly Diver\u201d or \u201cDon\u2019t Talk To Strangers\u201d didn\u2019t make the cut, while \u201cThe Last In Line\u201d was almost included at the end of a song as an afterthought.<\/p>\n
It would be another 12 years before Dio released a full-length live effort, so for the longest time, unless you dipped into the home video market, Intermission<\/i> was the only live album Dio fans could get their hands on. It\u2019s an enjoyable album to listen to, but it is akin to Chinese food\u2014after 34 minutes, don\u2019t be surprised if you find yourself craving more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6034],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46551","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dio","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46551","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=46551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46551"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}