Review by Daniel for Rainbow - Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978)
My first Rainbow experience was with 1976’s classic “Rising” album in the late 80’s or early 90’s. The duo of tracks that open & finish the record were unquestionably outstanding efforts & the more epic direction of this material was taking hard rock & heavy metal to places it had never ventured before. While it’s unquestionably a very enjoyable listen I have to admit to feeling that the overall package is a little overrated. There’s a distinct drop in quality in the middle of the album that prevents me from rating it as highly as other people inevitably seem to do but the quality of the rest of the material does manage to carry it to an extent. After I discovered “Rising” I quickly proceeded to check out the other two Dio-fronted Rainbow albums. Strangely I didn’t find either of them anywhere near as appealing & I haven’t returned to them until the last year or so when I decided a revisit was in order.
The production on “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” is pretty thin but that’s not unusual for the time. I definitely think it effects my enjoyment of the album little bit though. I was really hoping to hear Rainbow expanding on the more epic sound they’d started to pursue on “Rising” but there isn’t a lot of that here. It’s a much more traditional hard rock record. I’d definitely like to hear a substantially more expansive performance from Ritchie Blackmore but he really only soars a couple of times during the rare epic moments. Cozy Powell puts in a very professional performance behind the drum kit but it’s no surprise that Ronnie James Dio carries the album. Some of these tracks would simply be generic 70’s hard rock songs without his magical touch but I’m not sure it’s enough to make the album worthy of its status. For some reason Rainbow have decided to drop the keyboards that were such a prominent part of “Rising” & I find that decision to be a strange one. They added a lot to the atmosphere & were one the main elements that made “Rising” sound distinctive.
The album opens with the title track which is a solid enough but fairly generic hard rock tune. It’s kind of fun & has some good energy but it’s certainly nothing special. “Lady Of The Lake”, “LA Connection”, “Kill The King” & “The Shed (Subtle)” are also pretty decent examples of 70’s hard rock & I quite enjoy them but it’s really only the epic “Gates Of Babylon” that sees Rainbow reaching beyond their comfort zones & creating something with both substance & atmosphere. It has a very different feel to the rest of the album & is the clear highlight in my opinion. It’s no surprise that the keyboards have returned on this track & it sounds very much like it could have come for the “Rising” sessions. Sadly the quality of song-writing drops off substantially at the end of the album. “Sensitive To Light” is a generic blues-based rocker that has very little to hold the listeners interest while closing ballad “Rainbow Eyes” is a seriously cheesy piece of disposable garbage that is best forgotten. I’m not sure how the band convinced themselves that it was a good idea to be honest.
“Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” features some decent hard rock songs but it definitely fails to reach the same sort of heights as its predecessor & peters out badly in the back end. In fact “Rainbow Eyes” is bad enough that it's single-handedly caused me to drop my score a bit. That seems like a shame however I honestly think that most of the praise this album receives is based on Dio’s brilliance rather than the overall package. “Gates Of Babylon” is really the only truly great song on display here. Ultimately I find “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” to be a little disappointing & overrated although I do prefer it to Rainbow's similarly overrated debut album.