siLLy puPPy The 1995 release STRANGER IN US ALL was intended to be guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s first solo album after permanently retiring the RAINBOW brand name and rejoining / then again leaving the legendary Deep Purple in 1993. Apparently a demand from the BMG label which released the album, Blackmore was forced to resurrect the RAINBOW moniker and put together the umpteenth version of the band that absolutely nobody was expecting to see make a comeback especially in the alternative everything mid-1990s when the grunge scene had all but made 80s hard rockers obsolete.

Blackmore was always up to the challenge and instead of recruiting past members to form some sort of reunion album took on the bold decision to recruit completely unknown but promising musicians who could reinterpret the classic RAINBOW sounds of the past and take them somewhere new. Blackmore was wise to avoid jumping on the bandwagon that many an 80s band did by trying to adapt to the alternative 90s and instead simply looked to the past and picked up right where the last RAINBOW album “Bent Out Of Shape” left off in 1983 thus making it a 12 year gap between albums and going back further by using the moniker RITCHIE BLACKMORE’S RAINBOW which hadn’t donned an album cover since the 1975 debut.

The new lineup included American bassist Greg Smith, drummer John O’Reilly, keyboardist Paul Morris, Blackmore’s wife, backing vocalist and future partner in Blackmore’s Night, Candice Night and on lead vocals Scotland born Doogie White who was somewhat of a departure from all the other vocalists who came before with a grittier heavy blues rock style of singing. Despite the congregation of unseasoned newbies on board STRANGER IN US ALL was an amazingly great album of 70s and 80s sounding heavy metal and hard rock tracks that excelled in crafting catchy guitar driven hooks and strong melodic emotive lyrics which sort of mined RAINBOW’s past and included not only fantasy themes but more mainstream themes as well. The album was a true surprise in its consistency and although while not performing well in the English speaking world, did amazingly well in Europe and Japan where it was certified gold.

Little wonder the American scene completely ignored this RAINBOW release since it basically gave the middle finger to anything 90s and proudly looked back and delivered one of the strongest sets of tracks in the band’s eight album canon. The majority of the tracks were written by Blackmore and Doogie White. The opening “Wolf To The Moon” is by far the most metal on board and evoked the Dio years of RAINBOW along with more power metal intensity in the guitar riffs however the album cools down a bit in the energy department and remains in simple hard rock territory for the majority of the album’s near 52-minute run. “Cold Hearted Woman” sounds more like something off of a Whitesnake album from the 1980 timeline but the following “Hunting Humans (Insatiable)” provides one of the catchiest bass stomp driven grooves with the most instantly addictive hooks.

“Stand And Fight,” “Ariel” and “Too Late For Tears” also focus on heavy blues rock with strong hooks, dirty raw rhythms and despite being completely traditional are extremely well designed and performed. “Black Masquerade” reminds most of the Joe Lynn Turner years both compositionally and vocally. “Silence” is probably the track that sounds the most different from any other RAINBOW tracks despite a bluesy based riffing but still recognizable as a RAINBOW tune. The closing two tracks are the most different. “Hall Of The Mountain King” is a reinterpretation of an Edward Grieg piece from his most famous piece from “Peer Gynt” only arranged into a rockin’ the classic hard rock extravaganza with Doogie White adding power metal vocals. The closing “Still I’m Sad” is a Yardbirds cover and if you have the Japanese version, the bonus track “Emotional Crime” is included but nothing extraordinary different to get excited about as it’s just another blues rock song.

Very rarely do such comeback albums yield anything worthy of investigating but Blackmore hit a home run with this little gem. While nothing that would make anybody love the band if they weren’t already on board, STRANGER IN US ALL is nevertheless an extraordinarily strong album that takes RAINBOW to its next level and obvious conclusion that didn’t quite happen before Blackmore suddenly shut things down and jumped back on the Deep Purple bandwagon the decade prior. For anyone who stayed with RAINBOW after Dio jumped ship, this is definitely one that should not be missed as it is chock filled with instantly addictive hard rock hooks and excellent instrumental interplay that sounds like a band of well seasoned professionals but are in fact all brand new to the RAINBOW scene. This was Blackmore’s last album as a rock performer for 20 years before forming Blackmore’s Night with his wife Candice Night and then eventually reviving the RAINBOW brand once again in 2015. Will there be another album from this band? Who knows but if this is the last one ever made, it’s certainly not a bad way to go out.

siLLy puPPy Two albums in after the departure of original lead vocalist Ronnie James Dio, the legendary RAINBOW led by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had found a winner with newbie Joe Lynn Turner who helped reinvent the classic heavy metal RAINBOW into a more commercial hard rock version of the band which allowed the band to capture that Foreigner vibe which led to a slicker crossover appeal and mainstream success. While the first album with Turner, “Difficult To Cure” scored a top 5 hit with the Russ Ballard cover “I Surrender,” the album was a bit clunky as the tracks were a bit inconsistent in both quality and stylistic approach. All of that was corrected with the sixth overall studio album STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES which came out the following year in 1982.

The album perfectly captured the hard rock and AOR early 80s sound and fit in perfectly with contemporary acts like Whitesnake, Journey, Toto, Styx and the aforementioned Foreigner but offered more interesting musical performances with top notch musicians including Blackmore unleashing more impressive guitar solos than on the previous two albums. STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES was the closest thing to the same lineup from a previous album with only keyboardist Don Airy being replaced by newbie David Rosenthal. While the album didn’t perform as successfully in terms of pop hits and commercial success, STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES showcased nine excellent tracks that mixed the heavier aspects of rock with the AOR leaning elements of ballads. While the lyrics were still far from the Dio led world swords and sorcery, the album hit its stride as a hard rock band that offered instantly catchy hooks with emotive high range vocal performances.

The first two opening tracks were both released as singles with videos. The first “Death Alley Driver” showcased the new reinvented RAINBOW in full fury with that hard rock machismo, quickened tempos all in full decibelage and the closest thing to metal music on the album. The following “Stone Cold” has been a staple on classic rock radio ever since it hit the airwaves and is perhaps one of the best tracks of the post-Dio era. The track was perfect in how it allowed Joe Lyn Turner to display his impressive vocal range and teased the strong melodies to commingle with sophisticated dynamics, instrumental interplay and the use of that by then idiosyncratic atmospheric style that RAINBOW had made all their own. While the rest of the tracks may not be as instantly accessible or addictive as the first combo effect, after a few spins also resonate quite high as the band perfectly nailed a sound that sounded something like Foreigner’s “4” album along with classic Deep Purple keyboard led hard rock.

The track “MISS Mistreated” was a dig at David Coverdale’s song “Mistreated” that appeared all the way back on Deep Purple’s “Burn” album. Every track on this one is fairly strong and some feature extra heft as on “Rock Fever” which offered oscillating keyboard songs and that classic boogie guitar heft. The closing track “Eyes Of Fire” is also a standout as it featured some of the most sophisticated arrangements that including a heavy driving bass groove and the return of some of those symphonically fueled Middle Eastern music scales that made some of the Dio era tracks so classic sounding. Overall this wasn’t an album that won me over in the beginning as i only wanted to hear the first two songs but after giving it a fair shake i actually grew to love the entire album. Yeah, if you are totally turned off by Turner’s vocal style then this clearly isn’t for you but if you fancy 80s hard rock with AOR crossover appeal then you can’t do better than what RAINBOW was cranking out back in those days. This one has become a regular staple for yours truly.

siLLy puPPy Ritchie Blackmore has long been known as a difficult personality to work with and when one looks back at his band RAINBOW and its ever rotating cast of team members, it all reads like one of those horrible 1980s soap operas but yet somehow he sallied forth and released eight albums. After three albums with Ronnie James Dio as lead vocalist, RAINBOW earned its heavy metal creds as one of the leading pioneers of the power metal genre with excellent songwriting, tight-knit instrumental interplay and fantasy fueled themes that reverberate into the modern world of metal music however mainstream success eschewed the band and Blackmore was getting a little weary of the cashless notoriety and therefore steered the band into a more commercial sound.

The decision caused Ronnie James Dio to jump ship who was replaced by ex-The Marbles singer Graham Bonnet. “Down To Earth” did a fine job streamlining the RAINBOW sound into the zeitgeist of the late 70s hard rock scene without sacrificing the powerful drive that the first three albums had. It proved to send RAINBOW onto the album charts but still wasn’t good enough for Blackmore who wanted to be the next Boston i guess. Despite Bonnet doing a stellar job of belting out all those boogie fueled hard rock tunes, his forte was in the world of R&B so he felt like a fish out of water and jumped ship leaving Blackmore with the position of replacing the vocalist one more time. In the meantime Blackmore had zeroed in as Foreigner as the band that he wanted to emulate and in Bonnet’s stead arrived the newbie singer from New Jersey named Joe Lynn Turner who indeed sounded a lot like Lou Gramm.

Turner proved to be the lead singer RAINBOW needed to take the band’s sound into the commercial arenas of AOR infused hard rock and he would record three albums with the band before Blackmore scrapped it all and rejoined Deep Purple. DIFFICULT TO CURE was the first Turner album which came out in early 1981 and showcased an even more commercialized sound for RAINBOW. The former Argent guitar and singer Russ Ballard vaults were raided again after the success of “Since You’ve Been Gone” and the lead singer “I Surrender” quickly raced up the charts and hit the #3 position on the UK charts but the big time success Blackmore was shooting for in the US still eluded him. Being a bit cheesier filled with those tinny 80s keyboards and high register vocals, DOWN TO EARTH indeed sounded like a long lost Foreigner album, well, at least some of the time. Another interesting fact is that the album cover was originally supposed to appear on Black Sabbath’s 1978 album “Never Say Die!”

Truth be told, DIFFICULT TO CURE was a shaky start for Turner who performed his vocal duties well but the album was riddled with inconsistencies. While some tracks like “No Release” and “Can’t Happen Here” evoked the past with bluesy heavy and Deep Purple infused keyboards, other tracks were just plain silly including the hit single. “Spotlight Kid” although an OK track with the same boogie rock swagger featured a very strange sort of keyboard wizardry hoedown towards the end. “Magic” was anything but with an insufferable mix and sounds like a reject from one of those 80s Survivor albums. The AOR aspects were clearly a desperate attempt to cash in on the band’s by then legendary status. Nothing against AOR pop rock ballads but as with every musical genre, it requires the right elements in the right places in order to work and at this point RAINBOW sounds a bit lost.

Other tracks like “Freedom Fighter” and “Midtown Tunnel Vision” also skate in between the bluesy rock of the past and the more commercial sounds of the present but ultimately come off as Bad Company rejects. The cream of the crop for those who missed the Dio days was the closing instrumental title track with was in fact a modern interpretation of Ludwig van Beehthoven’s “Ninth” which sort of sounded like an old version of Deep Purple trying to emulate 1960s The Nice by rockin’ the classics. The track is probably the best on this one. As far as i’m concerned and speaking as someone who actually loves the AOR 80s version of RAINBOW, DIFFICULT TO CURE is the weakest album of RAINBOW’s eight album run. Not only is the material mostly mediocre but Blackmore was clearly indecisive as to exactly move the band with some tracks emulating Foreigner, others sounding like Whitesnake and yet others latching onto RAINBOW’s own Dio years. While not a horrible album by any means, this is my personal least favorite of this band’s existence.

siLLy puPPy It’s amazing to think how quickly things moved in the 1970s in comparison to the first two decades of the 21st century. It’s nothing for bands to wait five years between albums these days but back then things were set to jet speed. Ritchie Blackmore started the 1970s with Deep Purple rising to the top and then going through several changes in the band before going solo with RAINBOW in 1975 but even with his own band never managed to keep the same lineup for any album. Luckily his prize vocalist Ronnie James Dio stuck around for the first three albums but then one day Blackmore decided to drop the swords and sorcery themes and steer the band into a more commercial arena and Dio jumped ship.

While a true blow to the band’s overall sound, Blackmore was accustomed to auditioning new members and it seems in retrospect that half of RAINBOW’s time was spent recruiting new members rather than actually playing! Before Dio split, both bassist Bob Daisley and keyboardist David Stone were fired and replaced by Clive Chaman and Don Airey but soon after Chaman didn’t workout and former Deep Purple bandmate, bassist and producer of the previous albums finally stepped up to fill in as an actual musician. The task of replacing Dio was met sensibly by finding somebody would fit in with the band’s new slicker hard rock style that was more akin to bands like Styx, Foreigner and Whitesnake. Graham Bonnet formerly of The Marbles was chosen to fit the bill and while he did a remarkable job on the band’s fourth album DOWN TO EARTH, he wouldn’t last long. This was also the last album to feature drummer Cozy Powell.

DOWN TO EARTH is very much a product of the late 1970s timeline when fantasy infused prog had all but surrendered to more immediate hard rock with more DOWN TO EARTH themes and less subterfuge in interpretation. While heavy metal would soon regain all those dark fantasy and occult themes, this speed bump in history favored songs about love, life and other banalities that resulted in partying and having a great time with your friends. For the hardcore Dio fans, this move was a slap in the face and RAINBOW lost much of its devoted fanbase but where one door closes another opens and DOWN TO EARTH did indeed to prove to be the ticket to more radio airplay and charting singles which led to the expected uptick in sales. The group’s popularity was also boosted by RAINBOW headlining the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England.

Stylisitcally, DOWN TO EARTH fit right in with the nascent New Wave of British Heavy Metal with catchy bass grooves, infectious guitar riffs and melodic sing-along lyrics. The opening track and single “All Night Long” sounded somewhat like KISS meets Bad Company with a more pounding bass and drum drive but addictively composed with lots of catchy twists and turns. Bonnet’s vocal style proved to be the perfect answer to this new pop infused heavy rock. The other single was a cover of Russ Ballard’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” and proved to be one of RAINBOW’s biggest hits hitting the top 10 in England. Same with “All Night Long.” While no other singles were released, DOWN TO EARTH doesn’t really have any bad tracks. The diverse tracks includes a reprise of the dramatic keyboard symphonic opening on “Eyes Of The World” which also is quality single material as well as the familiar boogie shuffle on “No Time To Lose” although without Dio sounding a bit more like AC/DC or Foreigner.

“Makin’ Love” also featured exotic music scales in the vein of earlier songs like “Gates Of Babylon” only eschewing the arcane subject matter. The final three tracks are also of equal caliber thus making DOWN TO EARTH a really good specimen of heavy bluesy rock with classical crossover elements. Yeah Dio was gone but so what. Those first three albums were already about 85% the same as what is presented here only without dungeons and dragons themes and more focused on blue collar worker subject matter. Whatever the case i’m in it for the music not the poetry recitals and DOWN TO EARTH delivers the goods in the vein of many of the contemporary hard rock bands from Aerosmith and Thin Lizzy to Uriah Heep and the Scorpions only with the extra touches of keyboards. While RAINBOW may not have been reinventing the wheel in any way, Blackmore sure knew how to craft a competent collection of hard rockers that ticked off all of the boxes that made hard rock so popular during this era and while many may disagree, i really like Graham Bonnet’s vocal contributions. This is one of those i find under-appreciated by the majority.

siLLy puPPy In many ways, i’m the electron that orbits the atom in the opposite way of all the others! Many classic albums i really don’t see the hubbub about and likewise other styles of music that make others bonkers rock my world! Well such is the case with RAINBOW’s final album with Ronnie James Dio. While many herald the band’s second album “Rising” as the cream of the crop of Ritchie Blackmore’s rotating cast of musical characters, i actually find the pinnacle of the band’s musical prowess to be in the form of the band’s third album LONG LIVE ROCK ’N’ ROLL which emerged two years later after the stunningly well received live album “On Stage” sandwiched in between.

Of the eight studio albums that Blackmore released under the RAINBOW moniker, not a single one had the same lineup and LONG LIVE ROCK ’N’ ROLL was certainly no exception. This one was a bit unique in that it found bassist Bob Daisley and keyboardist Tony Carey beginning the album and then leaving the band half way through thus only contributing a few tracks each. Unable to find satisfactory bassist, Blackmore himself recorded the bass parts although Mark Clarke of Colosseum, Uriah Heep and Tempest was chosen but Blackmore hated his playing style and fired him on the spot.

Continuing the style of the previous albums of early heavy metal with bluesy guitar riffing infused with classical elements, RAINBOW pretty much followed in the footsteps of “Rising” although the subject matter was less uniform and only certain tracks were based in the realms of fantasy. The rest were much more straight forward heavy rockers with lead vocalist Ronnie James Dio’s rock god status stealing the show once again. Why this third installment of the RAINBOW universe appeals to me more than the others is that every track is at the top of its game as the band was a perfectly oiled machine at this point and although new members came and went, Blackmore cracked the whip and made his boys perform exactly as he wanted.

The album opens with three perfectly fueled anthem rockers including the title track, “Lady Of The Lake” and “L.A. Connection” which all hit the high notes of catchy melodic connections, intense rhythmic drive and impeccable musicians playing perfectly in tandem but the album really takes off on the fourth track “Gates Of Babylon” which is one of my all time favorite songs from any musical genre. The track would’ve fit in perfectly on “Rising” with its exotic musical scales, epic nature, symphonic touches and sizzlingly hot guitar solos not to mention a hard charging bass and drum backing. Same goes for the track “Kill The King” which challenges the tyranny of the world and rouses the masses to pull out the pitchforks! The track first appeared on the live album “On Stage” but came to satisfying fruition on LONG LIVE ROCK ’N’ ROLL.

“The Shed (Subtle)” and “Sensitive To Light” continue the bluesy hard rock heft in perfect fashion and the album finishes off with the band’s first slow cooker, the “ballad” so to speak. “Rainbow Eyes” reminisces of a Jimi Hendrix song at first but slowly builds into a monster ballad that finds Blackmore keeping it cool playing clean arpeggios while Dio provides his most subdued performance in all the RAINBOW years. The track is highly symphonic with lots of contrapuntal keys and four guest musicians that provide violins, viola, cello and flute making it sound a bit like a Renaissance song brought to the modern world. In some ways it’s RAINBOW’s closest thing to a “Stairway To Heaven” but never drifts into heavy rock.

While still considered a classic early heavy metal album, most fans will point to LONG LIVE ROCK ’N’ ROLL as a step down in quality but for my tastes, i actually find it a step up since “Rising” didn’t sustain what it excelled at for its entirety. While the first three albums are considered classic by today’s standards, the band didn’t really experience commercial success on the level they had hoped therefore Blackmore decided to steer the band in a more accessible direction and ditch the fantasy themes altogether which ultimately convinced Dio that it was time to move on and as we all know he would soon join Black Sabbath and replace Ozzy Osbourne and give that band a resuscitating surge in popularity. Sure, “Rising” wins for better cover art and overall visual presentation but when it comes to the compositions themselves, i much prefer this one to the other Dio led albums. Yeah i’m spinning on a different trajectory than most of you other electrons out there but hey, i still produce electricity!