[.ca] Bent Out Of Shape

the snowman cometh....:
when i was a little tyke, i loved RAINBOW, especially albums like RISING AND LONG LIVE ROCK-N-ROLL. Now that i'm a nearly middle aged man, i find alot of their earlier stuff kind of silly! Their first album is probably my favorite and contains such great tunes as SELF PORTRAIT and STILL I'M SAD. By BENT OUT OF SHEEP, RAINBOW had for the most part dropped all that medieval stuff and had turned into a FOREIGNER like AOR progressive pop metal outfit. BENT OUT OF SCOPE isn't a great album, but it does contain at least two great tunes. STREET OF DREAMS is one of RAINBOW'S better pop songs and became a big hit for them. My favorite song here is the atmospheric, synthesizer laden instru- mental SNOWMAN. This is a wonderfully sad, melodic song and quite unlike anything they'd done before. This song alone is worth buying the album for. The rest of this isn't quite as spectacu- lar, but it's not \ojunk\c, either. STRANDED is on okay song, as is CAN'T LET YOU GO and the band shows that they can still rock up a snowstorm on cuts like DRINKING WITH THE DEVIL and MAKE YOUR MOVE. JOE LYNN TURNER sings his lungs out on this, even if he does sound a bit too much like LOU GRAMM at times, tho' I LIKE LOU GRAMM's voice! FIRE DANCE isn't that convincing and FOOL FOR THE NIGHT is nothing to write home from jail about, but I still like this album. really...i dew.

Rainbow delves full-out into AOR:
The last Rainbow project prior to the Purple reunion in '84, Bent Out of Shape has taken some hard knocks over the years as the Rainbow album that finally degenerated the band to a second rate Journey-quality status (not saying that Journey is a bad band, mind you). It's easy to why; the once majestic, bombastic and medieval rock has been totally replaced with a radio friendly pop sound here. Ritchie had been pursuing this direction ever since late '78 when he hired Graham Bonnett on vocals for the Down to Earth project. And when he acquired Joe Lynn Turner the year after that, the AOR deal was signed, sealed and delivered! The previous year's Straight Between the Eyes hinted at what was to lie ahead. Songs like "Stone Cold" and "Rock Fever" were definitely mainstream by any standards, let alone those of classic (Dio-era) Rainbow. Bent out of Shape starts off with the fairly lackluster "Stranded" which seems to be lacking muscle and breadth, although it does contain a slippery atmospheric solo by the Man in Black. The Rosenthal keyboard intro on "Can't Let You Go" is very cool, almost churchy, and reminds me a lot of Don Airey's on "Centre of the Universe" by Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon (also released in '83). But things generally go up in a cloud of smoke for the rest of side one as "Fool for the Night" is color-by-numbers AOR and "Fire Dance" shows Turner trying to pull off silly gothic imagery. The beautiful instrumental "Anybody There" closes side one, possibly even eclipsing the heights acheived on the superb "Weiss Heim" on Finyl Vinyl. The only tracks worth a mention on side two would be the minor radio hit "Street of Dreams" featuring a classic Blackmore solo at the lead break and the Blackmore/Howard Blake penned instrumental "Snowman." The rest being rather unremarkable hard rock (Drinking with the Devil) or deflated attempts at Journey (Desperate Heart). Many blame Turner for the lose of direction Rainbow fell into during the early '80s. This is not entirely accurate, as Ritchie simply found a vocalist to suit his new vision for the band. Admittedly, Turner did cough up some fairly mundane lyrics and some over-extensions in the vocal department. I believe Ritchie was well aware that this formula was over baked, hence realizing that it was time for a change which materialized in the reformation of Purple.

Definitely:
Ah, Rainbow's final studio album. Hmmm, what can be said about it. Well, it is a good album, and the last in a series of Rainbow albums desperately searching for commercial acceptance in the US. This is a far cry from "Rainbow Rising", however, and seems to give an idea of where Mr Blackmore was eventually heading. The sword and sorcery lyrics of earlier days had by now given way to a more AOR direction (some may even say MOR), and once again the line-up had changed. There is a degree of inconsistency about the album. Two instrumentals (lack of lyrical ideas or boredom, who knows!). But the band could still rock. "Stranded" opens the set in much the same way that "Death Alley Driver" did on the previous album, and from the point everything seems to mellow out. Blackmore's playing is a lot more subdued than in the past, but shows a more sensitive side (FYI, I read an interview with RB during the accompanying tour, and he let it drop that he had to wear a back brace because of a pinched nerve in his neck). This listener can only wonder whether any of the material which appeared on the following year's "Perfect Strangers" Deep Purple reunion album could have ended up on this? How much different would it have been? Would it have rated 5 stars?

An overlooked gem..:
1983 proved to be an interesting year in music. As a junior in high school, Rainbow finally hit my ears on a metal compilation cassette I had purchased in a store. When 'Street of Dreams' moved through my headphones, my musical interests found a different direction from the new wave music that permeated the radio. Joe Lynn Turner and Ritchie Blackmore are inseperable on this album. Listen to the gritty yet melodic 'punch' of 'Stranded' and then ease into the classically tainted keyboard opening of 'Can't Let You Go'. The emotional intensity of Turner's vocals and Blackmore's guitar are complemented impressively by David Rosenthal's melodic and haunting keyboards. I found myself lost in the emotion expressed in the album's two wonderful instrumentals 'Anybody There' and 'Snowman'. The rest of the songlist provides variety in a hard rock direction, mixing guitar-driven rhythms and keyboard interplay. Don't let the other reviews mislead you..There is much to be admired here from the album as a whole and even though Rainbow no longer exists, this CD always finds its way into my player.

2 1/2 Stars For "Street Of Dreams":
This final album by Rainbow features one great song, "Street Of Dreams", and a lot of filler. I expected better from such great musicians.

• Stranded
• Can't Let You Go
• Fool for the Night
• Fire Dance
• Anybody There
• Desperate Heart
• Street of Dreams
• Drinking With the Devil
• Snowman
• Make Your Move