Now this IS interesting.
I love all three of the Dio era albums. For me the début contains five monumental songs: Man on the Silver Mountain, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves, Self Portrait, Temple of the King and Catch the Rainbow. Rising is utter class from start to finish; monumental riffage, some of the best drumming from Cozy - ever laid down on tape tbh and then there is Ritchie and Ronnie utterly nailing everything to the floor. Tony Carey even peaked with those timeless keyboard flourishes. Long Live... is nearly as brilliant but heads in a more commercial direction in parts and then we have the Gates of Babylon... still the greatest ever guitar solo... period... Kill the king too is glorious. Finally we end with Rainbow Eyes, beautiful and the perfect epitaph to one of the greatest rock bands ever. What followed was, well, wigs... shades and Hawaiian shirts, some okay moments but nothing to touch the majesty of the Dio era.
Still gets plenty of air time in our house.
Dio (RIP) was a voice that sounded like it was from a 7 foot MONSTER. We all know the reality lol
I was never lucky enough to see him when fronting rainbow, but saw him twice when he sang with sabbath.
There’s been some great voices in rock...Dio was argueably the BEST.