CD Odyssey Disc 430: Dio

My apologies for the time that has passed since my last review.  I’ve been out of town all weekend visiting my folks in Powell River and when I got back on Monday, I had to renew my passport.  After all of the travel and then queue sitting, I didn’t feel up to anything beyond video games and TV.

Then last night, we had company over and after they left it was late and I was too tired to write a review, which is a bad situation when you’ve already heard a mediocre record five times over.

So now I am now motivated to get this done, mostly because I want a new album to walk to work with tomorrow.

Disc 430 is…The Last in Line

Artist: Dio

Year of Release: 1984

What’s up with the Cover?  Dio delivers some fine album covers.  This one is some terrifying vision of one of the layers of Hell, throngs of lost souls gathering under a demonic presence flashing Dio’s trademark two finger salute.  These covers use to scare me just a little as a teenager.

How I Came To Know It: I was already a Dio fan from his earlier album, and was very happy when my brother (who was making good money at the time and buying a lot of eighties metal records) bought this one when it came out.  I bought it on CD years later, and I’ve had it for a while.

How It Stacks Up:  Since my last Dio review (“Holy Diver” reviewed way back at Disc 68) I’ve made good on my promise to get “Sacred Heart” and now have three Dio albums.  “The Last in Line” is the weakest of the three.

Rating:  2 stars

While I fulfilled the CD Odyssey rules no problem, over the last two days, other albums started sneaking their way into my daily walks replacing this one.  Yesterday, I listened to Billy Bragg’s “Don’t Try This At Home” on the walk to work, but reverted to “Last in Line” on the way home.  Today, I listened to Hayes Carll’s “Trouble in Mind” in both directions, although I did muster up the courage to return to Dio for my drive to and from the gym.  In short, my attention span has been noticeably slipping.

This is because “Last in Line” is simply not a very strong album.  Sure, all of the Dio basics are there; soaring operatic vocals, power chords and cleverly crafted melodies (the back of the album proudly notes in large font, “all lyrics and melodies written by Ronnie James Dio.”)  It is just that this is a weaker effort than I expect from a man who delivered such amazing work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his first solo effort.  “Last in Line” is just derivative of the first album, but without the same consistent quality of work.

Even one of my guilty pleasures, “Mystery” is little more than Dio ripping his own sound off, and then glamming it up a bit (incidentally, I liked the glam-up, which is what makes the pleasure so guilty for me).

It starts off well enough, though, and if you were to judge the record by the first two songs, you’d have to hold it every bit the equal of “Holy Diver.” The opening track, “We Rock” indeed rocks, with its vintage mid-eighties proto-speed metal sound, this was the music later, and heavier rock acts grew up listening to (even if nowadays far too few in metal circles will admit Dio’s influence).

The second (and title) track is why I bought this album, even though I remembered not thinking much of it when I first heard it back in 1984.  “The Last in Line” is one part-fantasy novel, one part post-Armageddon judgment day and all parts awesome.

Starting off with a solo guitar gently plucking, Dio sings the first few lines like he’s channeling some British folk singer from the sixties.  But this is mid-eighties metal my friends, and such pleasantries do not last for long on many metal records at this time.  Dio quickly reverts to form, launching into the song good and properly with a full-throated roar, singing:

“We're off to the witch

We may never never never come home

But the magic that we'll feel

Is worth a lifetime”

In case you’re keeping track, that’s three whole ‘nevers.’  Accompanied by power guitar, playing a few notes, then pausing dramatically, it is “I Love Rock and Roll” – now with more wizards.  By the time the fourth stanza is out, Dio is in fine ‘what the hell does he mean?’ form with his lyrics:

“We don't come alone

We are fire we are stone

We're the hand that writes

Then quickly moves away”

It doesn’t mean much, but when I was fourteen the idea of a hand that writes and then quickly moves away seemed oddly cool.  OK, I admit it – it still seems pretty cool.  The song itself is about judgment day, and if you want to know what Dio’s on about, go take another look at the cover.  The song is about nothing less than the salvation or damnation of the human race, and Dio’s tiny frame has a voice big enough to sing about such weighty topics and make them seem imminent.

Not so, most of the songs that follow.  Most have lyrics that are equally obscure but missing all the mystical weight of the title track.  Of course, if all you want are more references to rainbows, Dio doesn’t fail to deliver.  This album has nine songs, and three of them feature frickin’ rainbows:

From “Breathless”:

“Living inside your mind

Who knows the things you'll find

There could be hell or rainbows”

From “Evil Eyes”:

“Oh do you ever think about the way

I caught the rainbow

I'll be there when fire makes you dance”

And from the ‘space men visited us once, opus, “Egypt”:

“You've seen them walkin' on the water

You've seen flyin' through the sky

They were frightening in the darkness

They had rainbows in their eyes”

I know you’re wondering what the hell these songs are about but I think what’s important right now is – rainbows! That’s all you need to know.  In Dio’s world, no topic is so dark, and no music so heavy, that it can’t benefit from a little bit of rainbow magic.  Rainbow magic might be wrong for most metal artists, but I think we can all agree it is right for Dio.

There was a lot of bad eighties metal coming out at this time, and I shouldn’t pick on Dio so much, since this was one of his few clunkers amidst a lot of magic.  Also, the title track for “Last in Line” is one of the finest metal songs of its era, and worth every penny I paid for this record.  If the other songs are a bit pedestrian, I think I can forgive them for it.  Mind you, after five listens, I am not feeling particularly charitable beyond that.  Of the three Dio records I have, this one is indeed the last in line.  Two stars, Dio.

Best tracks:  We Rock, The Last in Line, Mystery