BMG 2023
The Studio Albums:
1996-2004
Recapturing glories of yore, the avatar of all things hard ‘n’ heavy leads his troops on to final victory.
If you pictured this ensemble’s timeline as a graph, it didn’t flow like the rising and the falling of the sea, as their fearless leader would express it, yet it had that perfect harmony which the legendary Ronnie James Dio once praised: it can be rendered in a parabolic form, with the mid-’90s representing the collective’s vertex, or rather nadir, in both creative and commercial terms – at least from today’s point of view – and here’s a powerful proof. Yet, picking up where 2006’s “A Decade Of Dio” left off, the four discs of a box set, whose deceptively unimaginative title is styled on a blurb sticker as “The StuDIO Albums: 1996-2004” and whose cover is much murkier, just as easily show how what some observes might assume was a spent force turned the tides of their fortunes in favor of renaissance and went out at the top of their game.
Getting there, though, required sheer will and immense resilience – as well as the change of outlook which enabled the group to go from stygian depths to celestial heights – and these works document Dio’s valiant struggle and triumphant ascent to a silver-mountain plateau he, and his instrumentalists, belonged on. It has to be noticed that the records gathered here are based on the brilliant 2019 remasters but are limited to the albums per se, and fans seeking concert discs attached to those reissues should proceed to other places; yet people who skip the onset of the band’s upsurge, considering “Angry Machines” not worth investing in, are bound to lose an important frame of reference for the ensemble’s further climb – and claim to immortality.
It would be wrong to attribute the raw edge of 1996’s “Angry Machines” to the influence of grunge or to the artist’s attempt to access the newfangled scene, because his collective’s sound started to harden on “Lock Up The Wolves” in 1990 – which facilitated Ronnie’s comeback to BLACK SABBATH to sculpt “Dehumanizer” two years later. He seemed to want to assess such heaviness outside of the DIO idiom without dissolving his core melodicism in a grinding barrage of gritty riffs, but even those who hailed his desire to move with the times preferred to perceive him as who he was: the elder statesman and the keeper of classic metal flame. If prior real-world problems had been concealed behind a fantasy façade, they came to light in 1993 to charge the steamroller advances of “Strange Highways” – where the trend-setting questions “Who’s that angry man I see? / Is he coming closer?” appeared – and its line-up-retaining follow-up that, from the perspective of nigh on thirty spins around the sun, feels much fresher, and aged better, than the preceding record.
And much more interesting too, as the stifling atmosphere of “Institutional Man” and the symphonic passages of “Stay Out Of My Mind” infuse the team’s scope with brain-bashing claustrophobia, inner strife and striving to regain the vivid palette of yore, the cosmic, killing-the-king “Big Sister” whips up Babylonian paranoia, and the frightening “Dying In America” introduces full-on realism to Dio’s lyrical lore, building upon the foundation “Hollywood Black” laid down on the previous platter. And then there’s “Black” – another piece the singer co-penned with guitarist Tracy G, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer Vinny Appice – condensing his past experience as an embodiment of doom ‘n’ gloom, touched upon on “A Light In The Black” by RAINBOW, and future development, leading up to “Bible Black” by HEAVEN & HELL, into darkness worthy of sacrificing quality rhymes for and allowing blank verse to strike a blow. More so, “Black” signals an out-of-the-blue return of muscular funk to Ronnie’s repertoire – a genre he had avoided since 1975’s “Snake Charmer” – to nail DIO’s dystopian, pseudo-luddite message that made him almost totally dispense with allegories and resort to plain, if still poetic, language. The message that the faux-chamber, piano-rippled lament “This Is Your Life” – not a ballad! – resolves in desolate, dolorous, sincere solemnity, crowned with a “Let it be magical” plea.
And it would be, indeed. While the “Angry Machines” numbers boasted austerely pessimistic sonics, 2000’s "Magica" found the ensemble rebound with a vengeance, Ronnie proclaiming “if you think I’m angry, just come over” and battling his contemporary rage by unexpectedly doing what was expected of him along – by devising a concept album, yet not one of a medieval fairy-tale type. Instead, Dio opted for a sci-fi-tinged fable about an ancient confrontation of Good and Evil, his favorite subject, and eventually settled upon a proper story that’s added to the disc as an 18-minute-long spoken-word performance, letting the listener enjoy the artist’s regular voice – as opposed to vocals which are just as histrionic on the majestically plodding “Lord Of The Last Day” and “Otherworld” or the fabulous “Fever Dreams” where the players stoke their leader’s reveries through incendiary delivery and give the stomping “Turn To Stone” and the fierce “Feed My Head” vigorous momentum – and a choral strength spilling into the epic “Eriel” for the musical fire to burn brighter.
Besides, Dio’s recovery of a tuneful approach to songs, and enveloping the record into an overture and its reprise, necessitated the call-out to the group’s former axeman Craig Goldy and the band’s original four-string rumbler Jimmy Bain, both of whom were last heard on 1987’s “Dream Evil” and who could not stop at merely elevating the singer’s refreshed colors to orchestral grandeur. This grandeur is redolent of the scope he fathomed on “Stargazer” – which, paired with “A Light In The Black” on RAINBOW’s “Rising” in 1976, was part of Ronnie’s initial attempt at stitching a tapestry from individual tracks – but old friends were also able to inspire him to rock ‘n’ roll again, as “Challis” demonstrates with much gusto, the method taken to the test on the ensemble’s subsequent platters. If not for the pardoned renegades providing the gorgeous quasi-serenade “As Long As It’s Not About Love” and the infectious folk-informed “Losing My Insanity” with acoustic lace akin to “The Temple Of The King” and if not for Simon Wright’s mighty rhythms, the frontman’s romantic flight toward utter magnificence would fail.
Thus, he caught the rainbow once more. 2002’s "Killing The Dragon" – and, in particular, its belligerent title track – heralded the second advent of Dio’s world of kings and queens; only this time the great beast Ronnie would smite on-stage during the “Sacred Heart” tour is the dangers of digital technology the singer had warned everyone about a decade earlier, when “Computer God” revealed another side of the angels’ abode, and on “Angry Machines” – without relying on metaphors. Here, Ronnie decided to unleash shorter pieces, most of them roaming around the 4-minute mark, but their emotional impact, amplified by Doug Aldrich’s fretboard filigree, can’t be ignored, and rocking gallop of the predatory “Along Comes A Spider” – predating Alice Cooper’s similarly shaped idea – or the bass-flaunting “Better In The Dark” can’t restrain the audience’s smile, unlike the strict imperatives of “Scream” and “Push” that produce a contemplative frown. Yet, somewhat confusingly, “Rock & Roll” – a resonant, troops-uniting hymn as opposed to the rousing anthem of “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” – doesn’t rock but sways, whereas “Throw Away Children” – purportedly planned to spearhead a “Hear ‘n Aid” sequel – rolls along the same runaway train of thought as “Rock ‘n’ Roll Children” and bears intensified sympathy in its vibrant refrains, spiced by kids’ delicately determined voices which sail into the night.
Emerging from there, the nocturnal slant of 2004’s “Master Of The Moon” – above all, the album’s magisterial titular cut, a logical progression from “Sunset Superman” – is announced from the very beginning, the lyrics of the speedy “One More For The Road” reflecting those of “Neon Knights” and serving up the “heavier than hell” phrase, bolstered by the prodigal Goldy and Pilson’s furious attack. As the now-incorporated Scott Warren’s stereo-panned ivories ground the groove of “Shivers” and “The Eyes” to drive them to the DIO singalong archetype, “The Man Who Would Be King” that’s squeezed between them swells with gothic organ waves, and the equally regal, dignified “I Am” ventures beyond the soliloquy which “I” offered with a lot of aplomb – with the self-assured stance prepared to fuel “Death By Love” a tad later.
It will make no sense for completists to bemoan the apparently missing, but pictured on the box and included as a 7-inch single in the collection’s LP variant, “Electra” – a dramatic cut which was to be used on “Magica II & III” that Ronnie envisioned yet failed to bring to fruition before his passing – because the elusive song is appended as a hidden track to the “Magica” disc. However, the absence of Japanese bonus “The Prisoner Of Paradise” which was added to the “Master Of The Moon” reissue in 2019 is unforgivable, especially with the “wrap me up in some chains / and you can push me out to sea” line linking the ensemble’s last album to their debut. Still, this deliberate oversight is compensated by augmenting “Angry Machines” with the humorously, cynically contradictive “God Hates Heavy Metal”: also a Nippon-only gratuity which didn’t land on the record’s 2019 expansion and which captured the veteran resurrecting the alliteration he employed on “Hungry For Heaven” and, most recently, on “Hunter Of The Heart” – and, of course, on “Heaven And Hell” – to turn the “H & H” formula inside out for a penultimate statement on the Oriental edition of the bleakest platter of his entire career. Yet the docking of the final addendum has a reason behind it, resulting in the band’s farewell number being the stately “In Dreams” – a significant locale echoed in the title of the Dio documentary.
And fever dreams have a tendency to stay. So, although this collective’s oeuvre will forever be defined by the first phase of their creative blast, it’s about time the multitudes reassessed the other half of DIO’s discography.
*****
