Jorn-Dio

Frontiers
2010

One important about this album is that it was actually started before Ronnie James Dio's passing. Although the track "Song For Ronnie James" was added in as Jorn's way of thanking Dio for all he did as a performer. Jorn had already previously covered "Kill The King" and "Lonely Is The World/Letters From Earth", but they appear as well. As far as song selection we get a few staples from Dio's long career "Don't talk to strangers" and "Stand Up And Shout". More often than not there are less obvious choices on here such as "Night People" and the terrific "Sunset Superman". Even "Sacred Heart" certainly isn't one of the most popular title tracks that Dio did. Still all of these were solid songs and it's good to see them getting picked for this album. Jorn Lande is a powerful singer so unlike many vocalist it's not a stretch for him to cover Dio. His voice is similar in range and it has been obvious through the years that Ronnie was a huge influence on his approach. He handles all of the songs very well which is something that certainly not many vocalists could handle. Jorn fans already knew that and won't be surprised by how good he sounds here. For me this is a cover album and although the vocals are fine I was hoping they would take a few more liberties with the music and try to add something of their own ideas to them. That doesn't happen nearly enough as the band sticks very much to the originals with little variation. To me that limits the number of times I going to play this in the future. I still stick by the idea that a good cover song should A)be somewhat faithful to the original but B) the band also has to put something of their sound into it as well. Jorn and his band do very well that first part, but so well with the second. So this is a good album, but it's unlikely I'll listen to it that often because the versions are so much like the originals I will likely be listening to the originals when I get the urge to hear these songs.