DIFFICULT TO CURE

OK, this album is just pure 1980's hard-rock music, but quite well crafted, and I believe I have some nostalgia towards this record as I heard it often as a teenager. Dio's presence does not dominate this album anymore, though Joe Lynn Turner's voice is bit similar, though not so full of pathos. Richie's guitar sound is yet the same, and those melodic lines on the verse of the opener now-evergreen "I Surrender" are really quite cool, though aesthetically this stuff isn't as cool as Hungarian late 60's acid folk. The overall quality of the compositions are the same throughout the record, making up a quite flat listening experience, except its final track, which is an arrangement of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". This is the most unforgettable and pleasant song from this record to me, though it surely is an act of raping to some (I really adore Beethoven.). This version really contains the essence of the movements' name, that being very joyful and stimulating song to be listened from an old 1980's Japanese car radio whilst driving drunk in the woods during Finnish Midsummer night.