Published on May 23, 2002
Whatever he does for the remainder of his career, Ronnie James
Dio has established a place for himself as one of the grandfathers
of today’s heavy metal scene. Whether it was his pioneering work
with Rainbow, the job he did filling the “unfillable” shoes of Ozzy
Osbourne in Black Sabbath, or the success of his solo career in the
’80s, Dio’s name is one which commands a lot of respect – and
rightfully so.
Yet Dio has struggled to come up with a fresh-sounding idea
since around the time of
The Last In Line – and I admt I’ve fallen a little behind
with his solo albums, all but ignoring everything from
Lock Up The Wolves until he put out
Inferno: Last In Live a few years ago.
Killing The Dragon, the latest effort from Dio and his band,
doesn’t do much to change my opinion. Is it a bad album? No… just
more of the same old same old that fans have come to expect. If
only it didn’t sound like yet another re-tread.
It’s really hard, in the case of this album, to pinpoint exactly
just where things went wrong. On the side of songwriting,
Killing The Dragon stumbles, featuring a collection of
tracks which sound like they could have been written at any stage
of Dio’s solo career. Tracks like “Along Comes A Spider,” “Scream”
and the title track almost ooze a lazy familarity – almost as if
Dio didn’t want to take any chances with a style of songwriting
going on 20 years old now. Even some of the better tracks like
“Guilty” and “Throw Away The Children” make me think that I’ve
heard this before – and it’s not because I’ve listened to this disc
for the past month.
On the side of musicianship, with no disrespect meant to
guitarist Doug Aldrich, but anyone who straps on the guitar in this
band is going to be chasing the ghost of Vivian Campbell (who’s now
securely in place with Def Leppard). Only the guest appearance of
Scott Warren on “Before The Fall” suggests the injection of new
lifeblood into the band’s sound – and it
works, dammit!
Then, there is Dio himself. Again, no disrespect is meant, but
his vocals are more often showing signs that Dio isn’t able to belt
out those lung-scraping wails he is best known for. Listen to
tracks like “Better In The Dark,” and compare them to anything from
earlier stages of Dio’s solo career, and listen to what the passage
of time has done. I’ll concede that this is one thing that Dio has
no control over, but it
is noticeable.
If there is any positive to be taken from this album, it is much
more approachable than
Magica, Dio’s previous release. Where
Magica was overblown and uninteresting,
Killing The Dragon has many more moments which at least make
the listener sit up and pay attention. In all fairness to Dio, if I
had to choose between the two albums, I’d snag
Killing The Dragon in a New York minute.
It’s hard enough to say where
Killing The Dragon became just a passable album for Dio;
it’s even harder to start suggesting ways that he could right the
ship. Frankly, I’m at a bit of a blank – and maybe Dio himself is,
as well. It would be too easy to use a hackneyed phrase such as
“you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. But this style of music
has worked for Dio nearly his entire career – and I’d hate to see
him try to become one of these nu-metal bands a la Limp Bizkit.
(The day Dio starts rapping is the day I give up all hope for heavy
metal.)
I really hate to wimp out on a review like this, but the truth
is, there are no easy explanations for why
Killing The Dragon is the way it is, nor are there easy
answers for how things could have improved. Let’s just leave it at
this: long-time Dio fans will find something to love in this album,
though it’s not Dio’s best.