Black Friday #1: Holy Diver

December 11th, 2009 by Oswald Hobbes / Comment on this post

When I first suggested the idea of doing this column, I had in mind records like Metallica’s Master Of Puppets and Slayer’s Reign In Blood. But when I asked Third World Timmy for suggestions, the first word out of his mouth was “Dio.” And suddenly I realized, I’ve loved Dio for “Holy Diver” and “Rainbow In The Dark,” plus his first two records with Black Sabbath, but I’ve never even heard his most popular full length record. Frankly, I expected a trainwreck; the cover art is amazing in the way that suggests really awful power metal, and Mr. Dio has a tendency to get carried away with the swords-and-sorcerers bullshit when Tony Iommi lets him off the leash. But Holy Diver is actually an amazing pop metal record; I’ve listened to it probably twenty-five times in the past week and I’m not tired of it, at all. So my little experiment that started (mostly) as a joke became revelatory and inspiring. Consider me a confirmed Dio evangelist, with the next five hundred words my opportunity to preach the true metal gospel.

Holy Diver builds its power cumulatively – there are a few great tracks, most notably the two mentioned above, but the set’s chief success is its mind-blowing consistency. Vivian Campbell (who would later go on to shred as Steve Clark’s replacement in Def Leppard) is the secret weapon, accenting chunky riffs with nimble fills; his style reminds me of Mick Mars’s famous statement that he “makes the music,” while the rest of Motley Crue provides rhythm. Campbell makes the music here. He can play fast, he can play slow, and his solos always go somewhere unexpected and fun. Even on filler tracks like “Straight Through The Heart” and “Invisible,” Campbell is showcasing some truly amazing shit.

This is not to downplay, obviously, the role of Ronnie James. Dude has a set of pipes, and he’s out to destroy on this record. You can practically hear his personal legacy inflating with every syllable. He really means everything he’s saying, which is somewhat remarkable because everything he’s saying is total bullshit. For instance: “Rainbow In The Dark.” This is my 3rd favorite pop-metal song of all time (right behind “Youth Gone Wild” and “Looks That Kill”), I’ve listened to it a couple hundred times over the years, and have actually made it a prerequisite that Tim play it at his parties before I will commit to attending. But I have no idea what it’s about. I suspect it’s about nothing; probably Dio just dreams up stuff that sounds vaguely mystical and weird, and then he turns it into solid gold with his passionate delivery. See also the famous line in “Holy Diver”: “You can see his stripes / But you know he’s clean / Oh, don’t you see what I mean?” Actually, Ron, I don’t. But it sounds so absurdly right-on that I’m willing to buy.

Every great album must have a secretly great track that nobody ever calls out for it’s awesomeness. That track is “Caught In The Middle.” The lyrics are generic self-empowerment hogwash, but Campbell’s power chords sell it like nothing else here. The melody is bright and poppy, with cool hints of melancholy at the end of each line. Most of the other album tracks are kind of nondescript, which is not to say “bad,” but “definitely not ‘Rainbow In The Dark.’” But that’s kind of like saying the Statue of David isn’t the Sistine Chapel. The deep cuts here aren’t as interesting or cool as the singles, but they still display a consistent level of craft that’s pretty rare to see spread so thickly across an entire disc. There’s nothing here I would skip, and at a pleasantly quick 42 minutes, Holy Diver is a record you can listen to a few times in a row without getting itchy ears.

What was it like to hear this in 1983, when it was released? I have no idea. I assume it felt really special and surprising, like your weird uncle slipping you a surprise fifty for Christmas. Because who is Ronnie James Dio, if not the weird uncle that periodically shocks us with random displays of awesomeness? Holy Diver is a heavy metal classic, and stands tall with Dio’s other notable achievements (including Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell and his appearance in the Tenacious D movie). I may have started listening as a joke, but I’m dead serious when I tell you to grab a copy if you don’t have one on the shelf yet. Within three spins you’ll have a new favorite record.

(Here at AssaultBLOG, we love heavy metal. Black Friday is our weekly celebration of classics in the genre. Recommendations are welcome, so send crazy shit to oswald@assultinc.com.)