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The Dio Album
"Paul Gilbert is a legendary shred guitarist known for his work with Racer X, a band that started out in the 80s as speed metal then got slightly more melodic when they reformed in the 90s. He is also famous for his chart topping band Mr. Big, and his solo project. This time he has turned Dio’s material into vocal-less guitar music! Why did he do that? By pure chance, when Mr Gilbert was in his car, he saw a baseball cap with ‘Dio’ written on it. He then decided to make a covers album of Dio’s work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and HIS solo project! A bit of weird story, but the axeman is known for his instrumental music, and turning music that had vocals into instrumental music as well felt like new territory for him. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. In a way. But being inspired by a baseball cap? Huh.
The album starts with up-tempo Black Sabbath rocker ‘Neon Knights’, Rainbow’s equally exciting ‘Kill the King’, and Dio’s nice and thrilling ‘Stand Up And Shout’. Perhaps sadly they are the only truly fast songs on the album, (although ‘Heaven and Hell’ does speed up) but don’t worry, there’s more than enough shredding in it. It’s a bit of a shame Dio song ‘I Speed at Night’ was never covered, maybe as a grand finale, as that too could have been an early Racer X song. Paul could do some great things to it, I’m sure. It already has some super neat fills and intelligent key changes that constantly up the tension, with Paul’s magic touch he could have added speed picked runs and turned the chaotic wig-out that is the solo into something truly impressive. I guess now Paul is in his mid 50s he has mellowed with age and doesn’t want to release too many thrill-fests in his albums nowadays. Fine.
Speaking of fills, maybe it would be better if the songs weren’t covered so literally and some extra mini sections, etc. were thrown in this LP. If I was Paul, I’d try to improve the riffs and melodies rather than copy them as he does have the ability to do so. Maybe he could change some of the power chords to more complex ones from time to time and that kind of thing. Racer X tracks such as ‘Poison Eyes’ have some pretty interesting harmonies at times. Kind of jazzy, almost. For whatever reason, there aren’t many dual guitar harmonies in the album. It’s more impressive when two guitars play at the same time and again, that would be no issue for Paul.
Having said that, Paul’s playing isn’t QUITE as crisp and flawless as it once was, it’s also more classic rock sounding than it used to be. Let’s call his style ‘turbo classic rock’, but it’s far from scrappy. I guess you can say it has more character, now. He actually sounds quite like Slash at times, these days. Gone is the ‘Street Lethal’ era where he would simply go up and down scales as fast as possible for the most part. His early shred playing may be a bit robotic for some people, so maybe age has been kind to him. Even so, the speed picking in ‘Kill the King’ for example is pretty damn impressive. What’s even more impressive is the fact the song was recorded live (unless the audience sounds were artificial. If so, shame on you Paul ).
To conclude, really the only things new about this album are the guitar solos and the fact the singer is gone and has been replaced by lead playing that mimics the ex-vocal melodies exactly. Oh, actually there are some vocal parts, there is a single ‘mmmmmm!’ in ‘Heaven and Hell’. That’s it. The album isn’t Paul at his instrumental best, I’d say Racer X tracks like ‘Viking Kong’ are far better, but this album is definitely entertaining and it’s a good idea, if random. You get a nice range of tracks here from bluesy rockers, to harder stuff, to the speedier stuff I keep going on about and it’s never truly dull despite my criticisms. When compared to other guitar albums, is it anything special? Not really, it’s fairly average when compared to the spectacular ‘Maximum Security’ by Tony Macalpine and this is partially the fault of Dio, but the melodies often aren’t as catchy as the ones found in Joe Satriani’s ‘Surfing with the Alien’. BUT if you’re looking for a more chilled out, (relatively) less flashy sound, the album could be for you. Personally, I’d buy the guy’s other stuff first." - Metal-Rules.com