DIO
Holy Diver

THE REVIEW

Ok, ok… the horned devil on the cover is a blatant tribute to Beelzebub. Copying the stage name from the one who would win the Oscar for "best supporting actor," if they made a fiction about the entire Bible, certainly couldn't be considered a "politically correct" move. And it's not nice to boast about a chained priest drowning either. Hard rock is beyond any limits, and you can't place stakes of any kind around it. "Holy Diver" helped create a new musical wave (N.W.O.B.H.M.), but also bury many utopias. The era of Sergio Leone, when they told us it was all ours, up to the point where we managed to have stakes to place on the desolate West, officially ends. And many of us, still many years later, crazy about Clint Eastwood, played "the good guy". But I'll be frank (as a complete exception), if they ever proposed me to play a role, I would have asked for the bad guy. Yes, bad. Like the wild and aggressive sound of this US-made hard’n’heavy gem.

The first artillery shots, with the scream of “Stand Up And Shout”, act as a charge for the subsequent hand-to-hand assault. Wielding the axe, for the occasion, is a nineteen-year-old of Irish origin, whose approach and technique will become a benchmark for many of his successors. It’s a pity that the good Viv Campbell has never again known (or wanted?) to truly gift us riffs and solos of that kind. The spectral scenarios of the title track follow. Ronnie Dio, on the verses of his most classic "in cadence" style, gives us another example of "rock lyricism". And the baroquisms of the perpetual Iommi (from whom the singer has just divorced, pushed away for being accused "of acting a little Hitler") are here replaced by the strikes from Campbell's six strings. But there's also the melody of the engaging arpeggio of “Don’t Talk To Strangers”, where the unforgettable solo, launched by Ronnie's high notes, battles with the heavy percussion of Vinny "o’Animalo" Appice. “Straight Through The Heart” and the unsettling ferocity of “Invisible” (this is truly Heavy at its best) echo the cadences of the already mentioned title track. “Shame On The Night” ends the hostilities: it's still the sharp highs of the imp, here in "child of the Evil One" version, that leave us breathless. Ronnie had understood very well how to entice his audience, not just by replaying, but by intensifying with resounding violence the gloomy atmospheres of the previous adventure with Sabbath.

Whether hard rock has ever really achieved its own artistic expression worthy of mention, time will tell us. Without a doubt, this “Holy Diver” represents one of the most inspired affirmations of a genre.