Dio - Holy Diver, 1983

01 - Stand Up And Shout
02 - Holy Diver
03 - Gypsy
04 - Caught In The Middle
05 - Don't Talk To Strangers
06 - Straight Through The Heart
07 - Invisible
08 - Rainbow In The Dark
09 - Shame On The Night

Strength is not a function of size, and he wasn't tall. But the strong one he is. Ronald James Padavona, known to most of us as just Dio (meaning “God” in Italian) – the man this world has lost only few years ago; the man to stay remembered for how he enriched the rock music.

Brought up on opera records, a self-taught vocalist with a strength of a million. It was his voice to support me whenever things were getting really bad, his strength I could always rely on. It was him to replace Ozzy in Black Sabbath, him to become a landmark voice of Rainbow, him to record some of the greatest parts for The Butterfly Ball… Progressively moving towards heavier and heavier sound along the career, he didn't record a single soft song with his band of the same name Dio for the first 13 years since this debut in 1983 till the closing track of The Angry Machines in 1996.

So let me offer to your attention what I find to be the best Dio's album – Holy Diver. Not too much sense in going through the tracks – they're all brilliant if you ask me. From Stand Up And Shout to Shame On The Night. Rainbow In The Dark is quite an anthem. And on and on… Just note the line-up: Jimmy Bain, former of Rainbow; Vinny Appice whose rhythms always build up around Dio’s part, constructing one whole together; and of course Vivian Campbell - the one to replace Steve Clark in Def Leppard few years after.

Here is the quote from RJD himself on the time of recording:
“It was a good time to be in that band. It was perfect for us. Everything just fell into place. The ethic in rehearsal was amazing. The effort in the recording was just as good. Everybody wanted it to be great. We really believed in what we were doing and couldn't wait to get that product out and have people hear it."

Thus I advise you to get to it and enjoy – it's a wonderful heavy album. And note Murray on the cover – the band's mascot to appear on every early record's front.

And just to embed a piece of YouTube – here is the original promotional video for the title track (quite funny visual by today's standards – 80's – what can you do...):




Full album's text at DarkLyrics

Wikipedia: Album|Artist 

Wayne Kramer next time.