Dio-The very beast of vol. 2

Niji
2012

We all know about Ronnie James Dio's life and his death. He gave a lot for decades no matter what band he was working for at the time. In addition to the many studio and live albums that he was part there have also been numerous anthologies dedicated to his work over the years. This one is a follow-up to the 2001album which spotlighted the band Dio's work from 1983's Holy Diver through to 1993 "Strange Highways. So this volume covered from 1996's Angry Machines onward. Now anyone whose favorite Dio comes this later time period would definitely be in a majority. Clearly the better albums were the earlier ones including "Holy Diver", "The last in line" and in my opinion the frequently underrated "Dream Evil". There were some decent albums from this time period like "Magica" and "Killing the dragon", but even at his best from this time Dio was repeating what he had done better in the 80's. The collection presents some very likable songs from this period including "Push", "Better in the dark" and "Along came a spider". Unfortunately also included are "Fever dreams" and "Feed my head" which represent Dio at his most tedious and unimaginative. Those last types of songs didn't happen  much in Ronnie's long career, but when they did it was mostly on some his later albums. This disc also includes some rarities including "Electra" (which was previously part of the "Tournado" box set) as well as "Prisoner of paradise" and "Metal will never die". "Electra" is probably the most interesting selection from that batch. Ronnie James Dio was always one of the most powerful and consistent vocalist going so hearing him sing anything is always pleasing to some extent. There are some good tracks on this album, but there are some throwaway songs too. I love the album cover and was glad to listen to some of these that I have not listened to it a while. Really this collection is just for die hard fans.