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Rainbow "Catch The Rainbow" cover
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by Nick Lancaster.
  • Type: Album
  • Release date: 26/05/2003
  • Label: Polydor
"These four walls are closing in/look at the fix you've put me in."

So sang a woman in a Rolo advert during Hollyoaks yesterday. But, bless her, she lacked the sheer intensity of Graham Bonnet's original vocal. You can almost hear the veins bulging on his purpling head. 'Since You've Been Gone' is, of course, an undisputed rock classic. And Rainbow is (was), of course, that thing Richie Blackmore did between Deep Purple (the good bit) and Deep Purple (the not-so-good bit), quite a while before he started wearing silly hats and playing the lute.

'Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology' is... yeah, you guessed it. It takes in a whole bunch of vocalists (the aforementioned Bonnet, Ronnie Dio, Joe Lynn Turner...) and an even wholer bunch of assorted instrumentalists (Don Airey, Cozy Powell, most of Deep Purple at sometime or another...). Blackmore was a temperamental old bugger (emphasis on the mental) with a tendency to sack band members for no readily apparent reason.

As personnel change, so the sound changes. Rainbow started off as Purple wannabes, occasionally getting it right with the likes of 'Man on the Silver Mountain' and the epic 'Stargazer', but all-too-often forgetting to put hooks in among the guitars and warbling. Multiple sackings later, and the band really hit the mark with a seemingly endless supply of anthems: 'Since you've Been Gone' needs no further explanation; 'All Night Long' is the best Kiss song Kiss never wrote; 'Long Live Rock 'N' Roll' is a lot better than any song with that title deserves to be. Huge choruses and flashy solos were the name of the game, and for once Blackmore was playing along.

Obviously it went pear-shaped. It always does. In the case of Rainbow, this meant the choruses shrunk, the solos lost their magic, and the production grew ever more syrupy. But a few diamonds flowed out of the AOR sewage pipe. 'I Surrender' is a gloriously overblown beast of a track; 'Can't Happen Here' bobs along nicely without inducing vomit, and 'Jealous Lover' is a solid rocker that was hidden away on a B-side. Not the stuff Metal Killers kompilations are made of, but pleasant fluff nonetheless.

Blackmore may have pissed his credibility away in recent years, but he used to be a genius. Sometimes.

  • Rainbow 7 / 10
Words: Nick Lancaster.

Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

What an incredible guitarist, though!

Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Can't beleive Sean lamavbasted me for only writing about crappy 'best of' compilation albums from old foegy bands and only liking anything pre-1990 and yet he lets a review of frickin' Rainbow (gods of the '70's metal) in here! What next, the new LEd Zeppelin album???

On a more serious note where's the review of Mecrappica's latest opus? que?

:-D


Re: Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Ooooooh bet you've been sitting online pressing 'refresh' every 30 seconds waiting for a review to come online you could slag off. Aren't you lucky? Lanky's reviewed plenty of new bands as well as old, you fucktard.

The Metallica promos were posted yesterday. We'll be running a competition should you wish to enter.

Re: Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Ha ha!

I am SO glad fucktard is catching on - it's such a great word!

Re: Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Rainbow see the Wizard, i'll give them that

ollie.

Re: Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Why does this remind me of the old monty python sketch about the socialist peasant being trod on by King Arthur?

"Come and see the violence inherent in the system, come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, im being repressed!"

f--ktard, thats a great insult by the way. Must use it more often.

God, its like Logans Run round here. Carousel is a myth etc. etc.

Anyway, Back to work. (I don't even have a working PC anymore, so i can hardly be accused of sitting at home looking for stuff to troll about - just pointing out a slight inconsistency)

And btw, the Metallica album's got the worst drum sound I've heard since a bag of spanner's crashing down a sewer....

I really like this site y'know. Just sometimes , it riles me, thats all, anyway, back to the analog world.
cheerio.

Re: Rainbow - Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology

Quoting Monty Python. Original.




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