This is an excellent compilation of the formative years of Rainbow, and the songs that made them the group they were.
Formed when Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple, and picked up a rising star in Ronnie James Dio, this double CD features the best songs from Rainbow's first five albums.
OK – so it is close to their best. I have a problem with Tarot Woman not being included here, but I guess everyone has their own choices. What this album does show is the wonderful force that Blackmore and Dio made as a writing team – Stargazer, Man On The Silver Mountain, Long Live Rock And Roll, Kill The King, Gates Of Babylon... and the list goes on.
It also makes you wonder what may have happened if Graham Bonnet had stayed with the group. His one release as vocalist, Down To Earth, contains great hits like Eyes Of The World, All Night long and Since You Been Gone.
Joe Lynn Turner gets a couple of token songs tacked on, with Difficult To Cure having only just been released when this came out, but he contributed just as much as these other two to Rainbow's legend in coming years.
Memories : I remember Rainbow getting me through a lot of the early stage of Uni in 1988. Think I had listen to Dio to death, and put this album on one day, and didn't take it off for about two months. Kill the King, A Light In The Black and Gates Of Babylon in particular were songs that helped me out a lot at the time.
Rating : Though there were more albums to come, and there has not been a definitive best-of done since, this is pretty much as good as you can get anyway. 5/5.
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