Band:	Rainbow
Album:	Long Live Rock 'N' Roll
Style:	Hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	April 09, 1978
Guest review by:	Doc G.

Disc I
01. Long Live Rock 'N' Roll
02. Lady Of The Lake
03. L.A. Connection
04. Gates Of Babylon
05. Kill The King
06. The Shed (Subtle)
07. Sensitive To Light
08. Rainbow Eyes

Disc II [Deluxe Edition]
[Rough Mixes (1977)]
01. Lady Of The Lake
02. Sensitive To Light
03. L.A. Connection
04. Kill The King
05. The Shed (Subtle)
06. Long Live Rock 'N' Roll
07. Rainbow Eyes
[Shepperton Film Studios Rehearsal (1977)]
08. Long Live Rock 'N' Roll (Take 1)
09. Kill The King
[Don Kirshner's Rock Concert (1978)]
10. Long Live Rock 'N' Roll
11. L.A. Connection
12. Gates Of Babylon
13. L.A. Connection [outtake version]
14. Gates Of Babylon [outtake version]

If anyone could cram as much variety and catchiness into 8 songs I'd sure like to hear it; this is unquestionably the dynamic combination of Ritchie Blackmore & Ronnie James Dio at its climax.

When I first picked up this album on vinyl a year or so ago my expectations, to be completely honest, were very low. I was a very big Dio fan but very little of what Deep Purple had to offer impressed me, but as a die-hard Dio fan it was a must have, and since then I've failed to see any Dio material or Deep Purple material that can beat, let alone match this album.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the band, on this album it consisted of frontman Ronnie James Dio, ex-Deep Purple axeman Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell on drums (later to become a drummer for Whitesnake & Black Sabbath), on bass we have Bob Daisly (Uriah Heep, Yngwie Malmsteen), and on keyboards its David Stone, whose work on this album makes it a crime that he didn't become a hero to be compared with the likes of Jon Lord & John Paul Jones.

Now that the introductions are over I'll explain the ridiculously high score. This album offers so much variety within the confines of Rock 'N' Roll, some of which seemed to be almost before their time. Songs like "Kill The King" which shows traces of speed metal, and "Gates Of Babylon" has clearly helped pave the path for epic power metal. On the flip side to the metal pioneering this album accomplishes it also contains everything from blues-rock to something that could almost be considered funk.

Rainbow even managed to be able to fit some orchestral work into the mix, which not only seemed to fit but almost made the two tracks in which it was contained, "Gates Of Babylon" and "Rainbow Eyes."

To explain why songwriting only received a 9/10 would be entirely because of the ballad track "Rainbow Eyes" though the song itself has a lot of passion in it, the intensity of the emotion is incredible, and the orchestral parts add to the song to a great degree, but through all this greatness the song runs an almost painful 7:26 minutes without any progression at all, which I found to be a boring way to close the album.

Musical skill wise this album is flawless, the performance & composition is unbeatable, the solos and riffs are very catchy, the bass hard & funky, the keys blazing with intensity, drums spot on with all the fills & crashes in the right places, and Ronnie's vocals just as powerful as usual. With all this being said, all that is left to say is that this is possibly one of (if not thee) greatest albums of all time.