Dio: Stand Up And Shout – The Anthology

If you call yourself a Heavy Metal fan and you don't have a reasonably strong background on the career and accomplishments of singer Ronnie James Dio, then I feel your proclamation will be called into question. Historically, the lead singer began with Elf, his Honky Tonk Blues band and eventually joined forced with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow when the axe slinger had grown discontent about Deep Purple. Together they would break musical ground and after a couple of great recordings he would move on to replace Ozzy Osbourne in the legendary Black Sabbath. From Sabbath it seemed the tale was only beginning as he would begin a meteoric solo career that was nothing less than prolific when it came to song writing and impact on the Heavy Metal genre. This Anthology from Rhino Entertainment takes us on a trip through all of the facets of Ronnie's career and comes off as one of the most expansive and detailed releases of its type based on the material it features. The album begins at the beginning with a few tracks from Elf and while this is not much in the way of Metal as opposed to Blues-influenced Honky-tonk Rock – I am pretty certain that many of Dio's fans has never even heard this stuff before it was placed here. It's decent stuff and while never my preference I enjoyed finding out just how versatile Dio actually was at such an early stage of his career. The inclusion of Elf makes this as much an education as it makes it an enjoyable music experience.

The release continues on to visit the Rainbow years and sadly we only get three tracks from this great band. Fine we have "Man On The Silver Mountain", "Starstruck" & "Long Live R&R", but to omit tracks like "Mistreated" and "Kill The King (my personal favorite) just seemed a tad short-sighted. Perhaps this was based on time constraints of the CD, for "Mistreated" itself is an incredibly long tune if you want to feature a proper version. When Dio joined up with the Black Sabbath guys and released Heaven And Hell and The Mob Rules the reception of this union was a bit mixed. Ozzy acolytes felt the band was done while others felt that perhaps something new and exciting would come of it. The anthology hits the target by reminding the listener just how good those two albums were by touching upon eight of the most crucial tracks from them. Core fans might feel something was left out as I did on the Rainbow end, but for me these inclusions are perfect from Dio's tenure. We even get a live track from Live Evil for good measure. The second CD begins with five tracks from the mega-blockbuster Holy Diver and that's not too shabby considering the release only had nine tracks. It's an album all Metal heads of discriminating taste should own so I will not elaborate any further on the works of genius that were featured there. The three tunes that follow come from his sophomore release The Last In Line and amount to a simple tease of the album. The release continues to explore the career of Dio as a solo artist by trying to fit in as much as it can with the remaining time, but really failing short of just a taste since there were so many albums to address. The bottom line is that this healthy compilation really has enough in the way of great Metal as well as his other genre styles to make you a life long Dio fan if you were not one already. So "Stand Up And Shout" everyone, Dio commands that you do so.

Track Listing

1. Hootchie Kootchie Lady
2. I'm Coming Back For You
3. Carolina Country Ball
4. Man On The Silver Mountain
5. Starstruck
6. Long Live (Rock 'N' Roll)
7. Neon Knights
8. Children Of The Sea
9. Heaven And Hell
10. Turn Up The Night
11. The Sign Of The Southern Cross
12. The Mob Rules
13. Computer God
14. Voodoo – live
15. Stand Up And Shout
16. Holy Diver
17. Don't Talk To Strangers
18. Straight Through The Heart
19. Rainbow In The Dark
20. We Rock
21. The Last In Line
22. Egypt (The Chains Are On)
23. King Of Rock And Roll
24. Hungry For Heaven
25. Dream Evil
26. All The Fools Sailed Away
27. Lock Up The Wolves
28. Strange Highways

Added: May 7th 2007
Reviewer: Ken Pierce
Score:
Related Link: Dio Website
Hits: 2584
Language: english

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