Band:	Dio
Album:	The Last In Line
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	July 13, 1984
Guest review by:	nicaZe

Disc I
01. We Rock
02. The Last In Line
03. Breathless
04. I Speed At Night
05. One Night In The City
06. Evil Eyes
07. Mystery
08. Eat Your Heart Out
09. Egypt (The Chains Are On)

Disc II [Deluxe edition]
01. Eat Your Heart Out [live]
02. Don't Talk To Strangers [live]
03. Holy Diver [live]
04. Rainbow In The Dark [live]
05. One Night In The City [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
06. We Rock [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
07. Holy Diver [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
08. Stargazer [Rainbow cover] [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
09. Heaven And Hell [Black Sabbath cover] [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
10. Rainbow In The Dark [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
11. Man On The Silver Mountain [Rainbow cover] [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]
12. Don't Talk To Strangers [Live At The Pinkpop Festival 1984]

Dio shows his devil's horns to the universe once again with his second solo album The Last In Line. His unique sounding vocals dominating each and every song. There are a lot of similarities to Holy Diver, but there are some subtle differences, too. The end result is almost equally as impressive though, and The Last In Line stands as one of the highlights of Dio's career.

When Dio's debut album Holy Diver landed on the shelves of music stores, people were absolutely blown away by it. The guitar harmonies, Ronnie James Dio's pitch-perfect tenor, and amazingly well done song compositions were all unbelievably good and stand tall even till this day. The first thing when listening to this release was the fact that the songs are much faster. The opener "We Rock" is one of the best openers I have ever heard. It just takes hold of you and rocks the hell out of you. The riffs by Vivian Campbell are very well done again, this time taking on more of an 80's metal approach than the rock influenced guitar riffs we heard on Holy Diver. His guitar work really shows his abilities to draw you in to his leads and solos. The drumming is more dynamic, however, the bass doesn't seem as prominent, which is unfortunate. As if there was any doubt, Dio's vocals are amazing as always. He sings with a lot of emotion and instantly makes every song have a memorable chorus, which is always important for this type of metal. Keyboardist Claude Schnell brings a different, if somewhat dated, synth to several tracks. The production, considering the time and the technology available, is excellent. You can hear all the instruments perfectly at all times.

One thing that I admit has gone down a bit is the songwriting. It's not necessarily bad, but overly simplistic and a bit lazy. In the end, I just want to say that this album has a better opener and also better song that closes the album. It's "Egypt (The Chains Are On)", which starts out very uniquely. The song transitions from an Egyptian-sounding tune into a slow, heavily distorted rocker. This song could be the story behind this album's cover, with the Dio figure apparently controlling all of the people below in what could be Egypt.

There is nothing I can bring myself to hate about this album. This is an album of classic metal greatness, well worthy of the attention of any fan of speed, power, progressive or traditional metal. I highly recommend it, as it receives constant play on my stereo. R.I.P. Ronnie.