This event created a worldwide search. Dio opened up the position to almost a public ballot. He encouraged anyone and everyone to send their demo tapes in as he searched for a suitable replacement, someone he felt could come in and be the breath of fresh air that the band needed. Dio claimed at the time that he received and listened to over 5000 demo tapes from aspiring band members from around the world. One of those was a 17 year old from England called Rowan Robertson. He had become aware of Goldy’s departure, and though he went through the channels of the band’s management in order to put his name in contention he was unsuccessful, as he was when he also went through Dio’s then record company Phonogram Records. Undeterred, Robertson then reached out to the band’s official fan club, hoping someone with closer ties to the frontman could help him get in contact with him. This ended up succeeding and his demo tape ended up in the hands of Dio, and led to an audition for the role, for which he was flown to Los Angeles to do so in front of Ronnie and Wendy Dio. A second audition followed, and not long after Robertson was made an offer to join the band, with the official announcement made on 20 July 1989. As you can imagine, this became the focal point for all the music media for the next 10 months leading up to the release of the album.
Robertson’s arrival in the band, perhaps surprisingly and through no fault of his own, ended up spelling the end of the remainder of the original members of Dio. Keyboardist Claude Schnell was the first to go, soon replaced by Jens Johanssen who moved on from Yngwie Malmsteen’s band to join Dio. After this, bass guitarist Jimmy Bain was also moved on, replaced by Teddy Cook, the almost equally as unknown as the newly hired guitarist. Finally, just two weeks before the band was to head into the studio to record the newly written album, Vinny Appice also left the band. Appice later confirmed that he was there until the album was written and left because he felt "This is not Dio" with "all these young guys in the band". As his replacement, Dio brought in his friend Simon Wright, who had moved on after a successful stint with AC/DC to take up the role.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times in September 1990, Ronnie was quoted as follows as to his decision to break up his original band, suggesting he was prompted by his sense that the band members had lost interest. “They just weren’t putting out anymore,” he said. “I’m very intense about what I do, and the guys in the band seemed to be merely going through the motions, bringing their lunch to work and looking at the clock, waiting to go home. And I just can’t go for that. I view this as a brand-new band, with four new guys and one old guy--me,” Dio said. “And after a three-year layover, we’re essentially starting all over again.”
“Wild One” comes out of the block immediately with Simon Wright’s drum intro to the band followed by the opening riff from new guitarist Rowan. The tempo is immediately up and about, and everything seems to lock in from the start. As the opening to the new era of the band, and indeed the completely converted line up of the band, it hits all the right moves from the outset. Rowan is giving plenty of opportunity to showcase his wares, to show why he has been brought in at such a tender age to be Dio’s new gunslinger. Straight up he is more Goldy than Campbell but there is nothing wrong with that. This is followed by the more subdued pace but increasingly brooding mood of “Born on the Sun”. There is a fantastic building of intensity through the song in both music and from the frontman himself. Dio’s vocals hit those gritty highs throughout the song, and Rowan sounds absolutely spectacular on this track, really ramping up the energy to make it as wonderful as it is.
From this point on, it is noticeable about the change within the structure of the album, the direction that this fifth Dio album has decided to take that differs with the albums that have preceded it. The tempo from this point on more or less sits in a slow mid-tempo, marking the way that Ronnie himself seems to have wanted the music to flow. “Hey Angel” is highlighted by Rowan's great solo in the middle of the song, which almost sounds like it is trying to get this song to speed up and come in at a better tempo that would improve its output markedly. It doesn’t succeed, but it still pushes Dio’s vocals to a more pleasing output as the song reaches its conclusion. “Between Two Hearts” has a passion about the vocals, most especially in the verses rather than the chorus, but the morbidly slow tempo that accompanies it holds back its true enjoyment as a result. This acts as one of the best examples of tracks on this album that sound reasonable in places but just need to ramp up the actual speed of the musical output to get it to an enjoyment level that would please the long-time fans of the band. “Night Music” is slightly brighter but follows the same pattern, a slower tempo riff that sounds terrific but isn’t allowed to break the barriers et for it. Indeed, the groove of the chorus here is terrific and Rowan’s solo again sounds great, but it just feels like this is saddled again with the grind and broken gears of a tractor trawling through mud. Ronnie’s vocals ramp up the end of the track again, sometimes making you wonder why he is leaving the real power for the end.
When it comes to the title track this continues in spades. “Lock Up the Wolves” possibly even slows down even further than anything to this point of the album. And yes, I’m aware that music doesn’t have to be fast or even mid pace to be great and entertaining. But this really does border on going backwards, so slow is the tempo. Just getting to the first drumbeat and riff feels like an eternity... and then another terminal pause before the next one. At times it is amazing that Simon has a tempo to keep on the drums because it drags so slowly between drumbeat and hi hats crashes. This song goes for 8.5 minutes but feels so much longer because of its terminal tempo. That’s a tough way to complete side one of the album. Then you flip it over and begin side two, and you get pretty much the same thing with “Evil on Queen Street”. Dio’s vocals take on the main role once again here, vocalising his lyrical story, while his band sit in their mono tempo track with the basic drum and bass rhythm pattern holding together underneath, and Rowan’s basic riff settling into the walk of the song. Both of these songs are well designed to set up the visual of the story being told with the desolate and moody characteristics of the music. But coming in to listen to a Dio album and hearing these songs back to back? That’s a tough ask. Ronnie’s vocals do climb at the back end of the song to bring some passion and vitality to the track.
The back third of the album does spend a little time trying to pull itself out of the mire in regards to tempo, and while it does do that it is the mood that is hard to replace. “Walk on Water” brings us back to a mid-tempo range, Dio singing in a less ominous and a more tale-telling fashion. This song is reminiscent of what the band produced for the “Dream Evil” album, which given the fact that all of those members had now gone is slightly ironic. “Twisted” pulls back a fraction again, and also has a less exciting rhythm style about it, one that doesn’t allow Rowan to break free of the spell easily and put his own mark on the track. “Why Are They Watching Me” is perhaps the fastest tempo of the album after the opening track, with Simon and Teddy even allowed to break their spell as well. The shame is that the song fades out as Rowan lets rip on a second solo, and yet it takes it with it as it fades into nothing. Such a shame, just give us 30 more seconds and I think it would have been a terrific finish. The album then closes out with the autobiographical “My Eyes”, the lyrics covering songs and albums and bands of Ronnie’s career all meshed into the track, perhaps fittingly closing the album on a high note. Indeed, perhaps in many ways once this album was released, it could have felt as though it was an appropriate way to bring to a close the bands days, which for a time was not so far away from the truth as may have been imagined.
Oh my... I was soooo looking forward to the release of this album. And due to the early announcement of the recruitment of a new guitarist in Rowan Robertson so early on, and the constant reporting of it in magazines such as Hot Metal and Kerrang and Metal Hammer, I had about a year to wait before its release. And that was interminable at the time. “Dream Evil” had been released right on the cusp of the end of our school years, and is still a burning memory of our final days of high school. So yes, I was excited and could wait to get this album.
It’s fair to say that I have rarely been as disappointed in my life as I was when I got this album.
I bought this on vinyl at Utopia Records as soon as I possibly could after its release... and was almost morbidly horrified at what I heard. This was so far away from what I had expected it to be, there are points of the universe as yet undiscovered that would be closer to what I thought this album would be like. Yes, it was an entirely new band, but the songs were actually mostly written by the same writers as they had had for years. Dio Bain Appice, and Robertson. So how could they be so different? Was it Rowan who was to blame for this? Now, let’s cut this off before we go any further. You get the feeling that Rowan was very tied up in what he was allowed to do to express himself musically on this album. That’s not unusual for a Dio-helmed album. He was a kid, a very YOUNG kid, and on his first ever project he was always going to have to tow the line pretty much all the way. There are some really terrific moments on this album where he shows what he can do, and they were then and still are today wonderful to listen to. And Ronnie writes all the melodies and the structure of the tracks. So no, Rowan was not to blame. It is harsh that he had to shoulder a fair percentage of the disappointment fans had with this album on its release. To be fair, it is such a shame that he didn’t get a second album on which to collaborate and perform with this band and perhaps give a clearer indication of his own songwriting abilities.
Dio drags back the tempo on this album, at which point it is molasses-slow for no real discernible reason. There is no proof of the following statement, but it is my own theory regarding this album, and how much of his band’s music goes from this point onwards. Ronnie often spoke about wanting to bring the heavy to his music. But by heavy it often seemed from 1989 onwards as though what he wanted was to slow down the songs, accentuate the guitar riffs and express himself with a heavier droning pace, which seems to be what he considered a heavier kind of music. It isn’t doom because that’s not what his guitarists played best. But it is deathly slow, and without those exciting break out riff and solos from his chosen guitarist it becomes a lot less interesting than it may be. It’s a real shame.
The drumming too is very much in the style that you would expect Vinny Appice to play in, which certainly binds with the account that his replacement came after all of the songs had been written, and Wright came in and played a close approximation to what Vinny would have played anyway. It sounds fine, but Simon is a different type of drummer, something he was able to show on Dio’s later albums.
So yes, when this album came out I was mortified. Compared to so many of the other amazing releases in the year 1990, this was a deep dark pit of disappointment.
Flash forward seven years. Dio has been back to Black Sabbath to release one of the heaviest albums ever recorded, one so different from this one that it is hard to imagine they reside so closely together. Then he’s out again, and he’s back with Dio and has released two more albums with the same sort of polarising of opinion that “Lock up the Wolves” produced. “Strange Highways” mirrors “Dehumanizer” in places, while “Angry Machines” is almost an industrial metal album, so completely unlike anything Dio has ever produced that it invoked from me a question – was this just like “Lock Up the Wolves”? So I reached into the collection, to an album I likely hadn’t listened to in seven years. And I put it on. And what I found was an album... that wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. Yep, it was still molasses-slow in the middle as I remembered it, but overall I thought it was okay. And for the first time I found myself wondering... if Dio had released THIS album in 1995 or 1996, would it have been better received? The changes in music had been stark in that time, and perhaps it better suited what heavy music had BECOME than what was prevalent at the time it was released.
Since then, I have listened to “Lock Up the Wolves” more often. It started off only occasionally, but over the years it has become a more regular occurrence. And although I still remember how much I thought this was a great big pile of crap when it was first released, now I really enjoy it. Once I got used to the pace of the album, I think there is a lot of great material to listen to here. And I am biased when it comes to Dio the band and Dio the artist. That much will always be true. And this will never be regarded as a great Dio album by anyone. But even over the last couple of weeks, having listened to it many many times again, I still love the mood and the way the album comes together. Sure, out of the ten studio albums the band released I would rank this at 9, I still love hearing Rowan’s only contribution to the band, and I still love listening to Ronnie. This is definitely a variant when comes to the band Dio’s discography, but being this far separated from the era makes this a far easier listen than it was 35 years ago.
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