Dio – Dream Evil – 1987
At this point I have to say: Whatever metal has transformed into, it’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s kind of boring. It’s the same thing over and over and over again. No wonder it was killed so easily by, well, musicians who wrote songs. There’s a reason why we still listen to Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Tool, Pearl Jam, 20 years on and no one talks about Dio except as an icon. Certainly not for his lasting gift of music.
I want very much to review this album on it’s merits, I really do. Were there anything on the record that I hadn’t heard before from the same dwarf-lord, I would leap to sing about it.
Bt, there isn’t. That said, for what the style is there’s a couple good tracks. “Sunset Superman” is one. And…um…
The fact that there’s honest to goodness balladeering (All the Fools Sailed Away) on this record. But it’s not even close to what it’s supposed to sound like: Meat Loaf. This is his realm and he reveled in it and bathed in it. Dio is no match for the Bat Our of Hell singer, much as he’d obviously love to be. And on something as so obviously pandering as “I Could Have Been a Dreamer”, he’s not even Bat Out of Hell Loaf, more like Bad Attitude Loaf.
On Dream Evil there’s no innovation, no integrity, this is a money grab. It all is.
Grade: C-
ASide: When a Woman Cries
BlindSide: Sunset Superman
DownSide: All the Fools Sailed Away, Naked in the Rain, I Could Have Been a Dreamer
