DOWN TO EARTH

With only Blackmore and Powell left from the previous line-up, one will never understand why Ritchie did such a disastrous move on Rainbow's musical directions. Calling in ex-Purple Glover was surprising enough, since Blackmore had fired him in 73 out of Purple, but it brought some hope. However, Dio's replacement was one of the weirder (and more disastrous) changes in music at the time. Graham Bonnet had simply no common grounds with Ritchie's musical leanings, but the intercontinental success on Since You've Been Gone proved again Blackmood right.

But as Rainbow became an AOR household name, most Purple and first-hour Rainbow fans were yelling suicide and this writer was one of the leaders. The album is a catastrophic mix of average song-writing and ill-advised musical choices, while Bonnet's voice is really an acquired taste (let's just say that I even prefer JL Turner's voice in further albums). The only ray of hope was the longer track on this album Eyes Of The World, which is quite good (and even slightly prog) and easily the proghead's only point of interest on this album. But it is hardly enough to save this album from drowning.

While personally I might prefer some of JLT-era Rainbow songs, it is clear that this young fan never looked again the same at Rainbow since, other than the Dio-era, even if He did see a concert of their in the early 80's (the tickets were won from a radio-station) and he checked out the next two albums which fared better than this one..

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