252. Dio / Dream Evil. 1987. 4.5/5.

For four years, more or less, Dio had been storming the world, with band leader Ronnie James Dio finally in the drivers seat and doing things his way. On the back of three massive albums - “Holy Diver”, “The Last in Line” and “Sacred Heart”, the band had had albums that reached top 10 in various countries and even had singles charting as well. As the bands that Ronnie had fronted in the past, Rainbow and Black Sabbath, had begun to slide in popularity after he had left them, his own band was ascending to its own platform of immortality.
As was discussed in the review for Dio’s “Intermission” EP, the falling out of guitarist and founding member Vivian Campbell with the band’s management had seen him leave the group, and in his place had been recruited Rough Cutt guitarist Craig Goldy. The one studio song that came on that EP had featured him on guitar, but the real test was yet to come, and it was something that fans around the world were focused on. Yes, we had heard him on “Time to Burn”. Yes, we had seen him perform live and been impressed. But now we were waiting to see what the band with Goldy involved would produce for the follow up album. Having been amazed and spoiled by the riffs and solos of Vivian Campbell on those first three albums, as well as his contributions to the writing of the songs, Goldy changed up that dynamic completely. But what was being felt at the time was not a sense of foreboding but a sense of expectation, of excitement to see what the band would produce with their new guitarist.
It was the age of releasing an album every year, where bands were still earning good dollars from producing more material, and Dio was no different in this respect. An album a year for the previous four years, including “Intermission”, for the fans meant a new album and a new tour for that year of 1987. But having moved from the dark and heavy “Holy Diver” to the more mystical thought provoking on “Sacred Heart”, the question posed was would the band continue on the course they had become the standard bearer of with their new album, or would they sail into a slightly different direction than their previous albums had taken.

From the first time you listen through the album, it is noticeable that the keyboards are more prominent here than they have been on the earlier albums. Claude Schnell had been a member of the group and features on this album as a co-writer on many songs, and although there are certainly keyboards used on “Sacred Heart”, in particular the title track as well as “Rock n Roll Children” and “Hungry for Heaven”, most of it is understated and only really brought to the fore when the songs are performed live. Most of the songs on “Dream Evil” though have that keyboard presence, once again though not as addition to the guitar but in complementing it in pieces of the songs. Indeed, it opens the album with the first chords of the first track “Night People”, a song that is yet another terrific opening to a Dio album.
The imagery of Ronnie’s lyrics continue to be a driving force in how wonderful these opening songs are. “Night People” asking ‘do you like the dark, do you like the way it moves’, based on those people who only come out at night and who are gone by dawn. “Dream Evil” having you fight around in the dark again, this time trying to ward off evil that is always surrounding you - ‘don’t think about the darkness, or the rumbling in the sky’. “Sunset Superman” again going with the night theme, ‘The night has a thousand eyes...before... the night tells a thousand lies’, and then ‘when you wake up in the morning, were you dreaming, screaming, trying to hide your broken heart, before somebody cuts it all away...’ again harking on dreams or nightmares, the terrors of sleep, or the hero of the dream as it ends. As always with his lyrics, Ronnie gives you both sides and in many ways allows you to interpret them in the way you want to. Is “Dream Evil” a horror movie or is it just the mind skirting around that idea? Is “Sunset Superman” a nightmare or a dream of the individual seeing themselves as the hero? Take it as you like it. But all three songs musically are just brilliant; the fast pace of “Night People”, the wonderful heavy riff of “Dream Evil”, and the sway between the two in “Sunset Superman”. And then there is the side one closing track, “All the Fools Sailed Away”, a track misinterpreted as a power ballad by some so called expert. This ain’t no ballad sweetheart, this is a fantastically developed song where the mood flows like the tide, telling its tale and having the song build to its crescendo through the use of Ronnie’s amazing vocals, the power of the guitars and drums, and then utilising the boys choir in the chorus to help bring the power to the lyrics. This is an epic song, as much of a ballad as “Egypt (the Chains are On)” is. It’s a tale with terrific emotion that is supported by the players. It is a triumph.
Given how amazing the opening side of the album is, if you were to be critical, the second half of the album doesn’t reach the same brilliant standard. They are perhaps what you would call good solid songs rather than awesome ones. Somebody with an unbiased ear may perhaps lay the claim that the band threw all their eggs into one basket and got those first four songs to start the album, and then had the leftovers to piece together in the second half. That is perhaps overly harsh, and as someone who adores this album I can still see the sheen that isn't quite chrome on these tracks. “Naked in the Rain” is credited solely to Ronnie as a writer, and the tempo as such does show the direction his future albums began sliding to. “Overlove” picks it up again, while the subject matter of both of these tracks differs 180 degrees from those on side one, as does the final track “When a Woman Cries”. It’s almost a dark and light side of each album. “I Could Have Been a Dreamer” was actually released as the first single from the album, which strikes me as very peculiar, because it does feel like one of the weaker tracks here. For me, the best song of the second side of the album is “Face in the Window”, one which feels much more like a Dio song both lyrically and musically.

When “Dream Evil” was released, it was a day of celebration in my school group. We had devoured those first albums of the band, some of us had been fortunate enough to see the band in concert the previous year, and we were desperate for all new music to be released. This came to us just a little later than this date in Australia, but I remember the day I walked into my record store and purchased it, before taking it home and putting it on for the first time. And it really was magical. It was like the previous year when I first got Iron Maiden’s “Somewhere in Time” and listening to it for the first time. Those first four songs in particular just boomed out of the speakers, that opening to “Night People”, the change in voice at the end of “Dream Evil”, the joy of almost flying along with the bridge in “Sunset Superman”, and the chorus with the boys choir of “All the Fools Sailed Away”. All of those dominate my memories of the back half of 1987, things like standing in the school hall on our Year 12 graduation muck-up day, playing this album at full volume at midnight and singing along with half a dozen other like-minded mates, and my 18th birthday, spent listening to this over and over while on a family holiday at the time.
I listened to this album a LOT. And it would be difficult to express just how much I listened to it. Every time I put it on to listen to now, it sends me back to those final school days and the hijinks we got up to, and the great memories of that time. They are all tied up with this album, so it is hard to extricate those emotional memories from the album itself. Yes, I do believe in retrospect that the second half of the album is a different tone from the first half, and that a couple of the songs here – perhaps for the first time in the bands history, don’t quite cut it to the same brilliance as all of the others written to this point in time. No doubt other individuals will feel this is a lesser album as a result. But for me, it takes nothing away from how this album ingrained itself to me, and how my love of it 35 years ago has never gone away.


This album signalled the last of the stability of the band and could be labelled as the end of the glory days of Dio. Personnel changes, directional changes and other projects coming along meant that the true brightness of Dio’s music probably ends with “Dream Evil”. There was still great songs and some excellent albums yet to come down the track, but this first and greatest phase of the band pretty much sailed away at this time.