Holy Diver doesn't quite scale those lofty peaks. My favourite of that latter category will always be Rising, one of the finest hard rock albums of the 1970s.
I tend to split Ronnie's recorded output into three different categories, his good albums ( Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Sacred Heart, Dream Evil), his great albums ( Mob Rules, The Last In Line), and that unimpeachable, essential trinity ( Rising, Heaven And Hell and Holy Diver).
When I say debut album there, I'm obviously referring to the actual band Dio, as Ronnie James Dio was already a well established figure in metal by 1983. A couple of weeks ago, there were a few comments made on here about 'greatest debut albums ever', and here we are with another contender. One of the the finest, purest seams of classic rock goodness of all.
We've hit the mother lode with this week's choice. The fact that Dio belted these purple-prosed axioms in the voice of a goblin angel makes them even more remarkable: after decades of conditioning with Gen-X irony, the sheer earnestness of his delivery can’t help but feel a little bit miraculous." ( Spectrum Culture (opens in new tab))Īlex Hayes: Okay, now we're talking. "Lyrics like the title track’s “ Beneath the velvet lies/ There’s a truth that’s hard as steel” make even the most accurate Tenacious D-style parody superfluous they are metal self-parody par excellence, resplendent in their silliness. So, too, is Holy Diver still the undisputed highlight of Dio's career, and, indeed, one of the finest pure heavy metal albums of the 1980s." ( AllMusic (opens in new tab)) "Aside from Ronnie's unquestionably stellar songwriting, Holy Diver's stunning quality and consistency owed much to his carefully chosen bandmates, including powerhouse drummer (and fellow Sabbath survivor) Vinny Appice, veteran bassist Jimmy Bain, and a phenomenal find in young Irish guitarist Vivian Campbell, whose tastefully pyrotechnic leads helped make this the definitive Dio lineup. These are the songs that made Dio the avatar and patron saint of dorky metalheads everywhere. His work with Rainbow and Sabbath was just as pivotal to the genre, but Holy Diver is his zenith – the most Dio album of all time. "Dio went into the sessions with something to prove, and he left with one of metal’s holy grails, a classic of the same magnitude as Paranoid and The Number Of The Beast. In hindsight, I like to think we were right about who we put in the water.” "But the idea was to reverse the question of, ‘How come you’ve got a monster drowning a priest?’ We wanted to be able to say, ‘How do you know it’s not a priest drowning a monster?’ And I think that’s kind of been proven out in the last few years with all the problems we’ve had in the Catholic Church.
“I seem to remember a little bit of, ‘Are you sure you wanna do this?’ from the record company," said Dio. The image of a demon drowning a priest stirred up some minor controversy – something the band didn’t shy away from. Its striking album cover was designed by Ronnie and Wendy Dio and illustrated by Randy Berrett. With its electrifying opener Stand Up And Shout, its spooky title track and the majestic Rainbow In The Dark, Holy Diver was the album on which Dio, the man, was able to fully realise his own singular vision. The little fella’s masterstroke was the acquisition of 19-year-old guitarist Vivian Campbell, the man who “put the fast in Belfast”, who gave the band a vital, contemporary edge. This was a new beginning for Ronnie, but his past was in evidence both in his choice of two former bandmates (ex Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain, ex- Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice) and in the epic feel of the music.
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