Rainbow - Down to Earth

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Free Music Notes for Down to Earth

Free Music Review: Down to Earth And Outta Sight!
Hit: 5 Stars

Exit Ronnie James Dio, the diminutive frontman who gave operatic voice to Blackmore's magically gothic and netherworld vision. Enter Graham Bonnett, former pop singer and neo-metal James Dean with flat top and shades to match. Fans expecting another Dio must have been quite surprised by the almost pop and r&b leanings of this street-tough posing with open shirt on the album sleeve. Gone were the stargazers and men on silver mountains. Blackmore, together with former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, incorporated some pop and r&b into their philosophies and provided a vehicle for Bonnett to front a leaner, meaner and more concise Rainbow.

And it is good. "All Nite Long" is the love song at its most anthemic with the kind of sing-along chorus Blackmore would never have dared before. "No Time To Lose" is a dirty, fast little rocker reminiscent of Deep Purple's "Speed King," while "Makin' Love" sounds like the kind of pop metal that became a chart topper less than a decade later. The surprise here is "Since You Been Gone," pure pop penned by Russ Ballard ("Into the Night" by Ace Frehley and "You Not Me" by Dream Theater among many others) with a Louie Louie-like riff and another sing-along chorus. "Love's No Friend" returns Blackmore to the blues, where Bonnett soars with heartfelt emotion and rage never before heard in a Rainbow song. In between is a Bach-like break that reminds you, yes, this is still Richie Blackmore's music.

The other three selections reflect more typical Rainbow fare. "Danger Zone" takes Bonnett's fast-talking fury into the kind of driving rocker that soon became Rainbow's trademark. "Lost in Hollywood," for which Cozy Powell received a co-writing credit, sounds like a pared-down, commercialized "Light in the Black" with its fast rhythms and a Bach-rock break courtesy of keyboardist Don Airey. Airey saved his best for the album's finest cut, "Eyes of the World." Perhaps the only cut that sounds closest to what Blackmore would have written in the old days, "Eyes of the World" takes Airey's eerie "Tarot Woman"-type keyboard introduction into a blistering riff and a Bonnett vocal piercing with intensity and urgency. Bonnett, the bluesy, pop-wailer, shines with power and conviction.

Unfortunately, behind all of this activity is a flat production with as much resonance as a shoebox. Roger Glover, skilled bassist and gifted songwriter, has proved time and again that for much of his career he could hardly produce himself out of a paper bag. Listen to the drums for instance. Powell could bash his drums like John Bonham, but Glover took the drums as well as every other element of the band's recording and stuffed it into a padded cell. Second only to Mike Stone (who has desecrated the sounds of Journey, Asia and Whitesnake), Glover for many years has underproduced what should have been many groups' finest efforts, like Judas Priest (Sin After Sin) and Nazareth (Razamanaz).

Sadly, the Airey-Blackmore-Bonnett-Glover-Powell lineup would last only one album. Airey left to play for the Michael Schenker Group's first album and Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Ozz. Powell joined MSG for an album and a tour. Bonnett resurfaced with - alas - MSG a little while later. Blackmore - always prolific, always progressive - and Glover revealed a new Rainbow with at-the-time unknowns; however, because of their experience with Rainbow, these relative unknowns became revolving-door superstars in their own right with bands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Yngwie Malmsteen. Blackmore, though he maintained his classical and baroque stylings, continued to mold the Rainbow style in search of commercial legitimacy. "Difficult to Cure" and "Straight Between the Eyes" offer incredible insights into the mind of Blackmore and the many facets of his vision, but never again has he, nor his bandmates, ever sounded so fresh and so wild as they did on "Down to Earth."

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