HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Rising – Rainbow

The seventies were for heavy metal what the sixties were for pop culture. Whilst BLACK SABBATH’s self-titled debut gave birth to the blueprints of the genre, a string of albums following it only strengthened the decade’s case as the quintessential year. DEEP PURPLE hit hard rock heaven on 1972’s Machine Head; KISS made glam rock a cultural phenomenon with 1975’s Alive; RUSH practically prototyped prog-rock on 1976’s 2112, and MOTÖRHEAD paved the way for thrash metal on 1979’s Overkill. Sandwiched in the middle of it all in 1976 is Rising by RAINBOW. Bringing together the hard rock hits of DEEP PURPLE founding father and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore with the then-unknown vocal talents of ELF’s Ronnie James Dio; RAINBOW threw down the gauntlet for heavy metal supremacy with their sophomore effort. Born out of Blackmore’s creative frustrations following the arrival of David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, the band was originally comprised of members of ELF.

Once they released their self-titled debut, Blackmore became disillusioned with their ability to play live and sacked every soul in the band except Dio. It was a decision that would give birth to a powerful line-up including Jeff Beck’s go-to drummer Cozy Powell and introducing the world to bassist Jimmy Bain (who would later join DIO and BLACK SABBATH) and keyboardist Tony Carey. Together they tapped into a mystical well of musical magic.

Blending the complexity of blues-rock with riffs that roll along like a rollercoaster, the short-lived Lennon & McCartney of heavy metal paved the way for not one but two strains of sub-genres. Over a decade before HELLOWEEN perfected power metal, RAINBOW put out the prototype. On Rising, they paint pictures of faraway fantasy lands set against a backdrop of sweeping, synth-laden soundscapes within Carey’s keyboard kingdom. Just look at the way the spaced-out futuristic synths of opener Tarot Woman cascade into a kaleidoscope of spiralling keys and cyclical riffs. How about the punk-meets-power metal pomp of Starstruck that screams so loudly the blueprint for HELLOWEEN’s I Want Out without comprising the commercial potential rock and roll in the seventies shot for?  

If one sub-genre wasn’t enough, the melodic strains of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal can be found in the crevices of Rising. As much as its fantasy lyrics fall into power metal territory, the towering eight-minute centrepiece Stargazer can take some of the credit for IRON MAIDEN’s descent into prog-addled conceptual heights in the mid-eighties. Elsewhere, Do You Close Your Eyes carries as much of the formula DEF LEPPARD cooked up into glam metal on Pyromania and Hysteria as it does the punk-infused Paul DiAnno-era IRON MAIDEN. If you start tracing where those two bands trailed off into, it’s a rabbit hole. A rabbit hole that can arguably be attributed to RAINBOW.

Rising is a shapeshifting cosmos, switching seamlessly between sub-genres that were yet to exist. It’s an album that’s as ambitious as its creative linchpins: Blackmore and Dio. Whilst the southern-rock groove of Man On The Silver Mountain and the lo-fi prog-rock balladry of the PINK FLOYD-inspired Catch The Rainbow set out the stall for what Dio would eventually go on to do with his eponymous solo outfit, Rising was the album where the pair finally found their creative footing. Aided in part by Blackmore’s discovery of the cello, and Dio once again discovering the depths of his vocal range, they perfected their prototypes across just six songs. 

Rising is arguably the album in which RAINBOW’s creative powers peaked, a song writing showcase for heavy metal moving into the eighties. Blackmore and Dio’s partnership is so pivotal to the decade that comes next, yet never lived to see the light of the eighties together. Having topped the UK charts twice with DEEP PURPLE, Blackmore was obsessed with recreating their commercial success with RAINBOW, taking them on tour around the world relentlessly in promotion of their records. Whereas critical acclaim has since been showered upon the Dio-era of recordings, it wasn’t until the singer had sailed off into the seven seas to replace Ozzy Osbourne in BLACK SABBATH that they truly broke through the barriers of commercial stardom. Not surprisingly, their chart success came as they shifted their sound to stripped-down hard-rock that dialled up the hooks and catered their wares for radio, more akin to what we now call classic rock than the power metal pomp of Rising. It’s hard to quite conceptualise the thought of Dio diving into Since You Been Gone without him turning his replacement Graham Bonnet’s take into a power-metal twilight zone. 

Without Rising, the partnership of Blackmore and Dio may have never disbanded. The ambitions they aspired to, although at one time perfectly in sync, were growing more and more drastically apart; there’s only so many attempts an act gets at stardom and eight-minute opuses aren’t going to get you on Top of the Pops. The follow up to Rising, Long Live Rock N’ Roll was simply a distillation of the disbandment to come mere months after its release, highlighting a push-and-pull dynamism between Dio’s desire to push their sonic possibilities and Blackmore’s lust for rock and roll heaven. The executioner’s axe swung hard on the head of this partnership when Blackmore admitted in an interview with Sounds in 1979 that he simply wanted to move into a new commercial direction away from ‘the sword and sorcery.’ Infuriated, Dio got up and left the band immediately. 

Rising not only set in motion the future of RAINBOW but put in place the path that its singer would take on his journey into the heavy metal annals of fame. Whilst Dio first met BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi at the very same club on the sunset strip that gave RAINBOW their namesake in 1979, the influence on their musical output during their time together can be traced as far back as Rising’s second half. Comprising two eight-minute tour-de-force, Stargazer and A Light In The Black, the prog-infused fantasy islands they envisioned would lay down the groundwork for the first of Dio’s outings with BLACK SABBATH, 1980’s Heaven and Hell. It’s no surprise that the first song the duo of Dio and Iommi wrote was the mystical Children Of The Sea. Simply listen to Stargazer and Children Of The Sea back-to-back to indulge in the former’s influence on the latter. Perhaps even more so is it a testament to Dio’s legacy that the track was written during their first jam session, one they labelled as simply ‘getting to know’ each other. 

It’s important to note that no matter where Dio’s career took him, the impact of Rising reverberated like ripples across the lake of his life both for better and for worse. Dio chopped and changed the stylings Ozzy Osbourne had set in stone, much like he did with the formula Blackmore began twiddling with during his time in DEEP PURPLE. Dio’s dynamic vocals delivered a different attitude, a different voice, and a different musical approach. Iommi once described the shift as a vocal revolution, stating “Dio would sing across the riff, whereas Ozzy would follow the riff.”

Just as Rising had foreshadowed the fading partnership of Dio and Blackmore, so did it to foreshadow the dissolution of Dio and Iommi. The follow-up to Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, was mired by personal and creative conflict, much like Long Live Rock & Roll was following Rising. Dio may be one of metal’s most definitive figureheads of all time, but arguably he was one of the most divisive. Bill Ward quit the band because life without Ozzy at the helm was intolerable, and Geezer Butler went back and forth on his time in the band like parliament does their policies. The cracks began to appear, and soon irreparable rifts were made. Dio was accused of sneaking into studios to change the mixes, and creative conflicts over his vocals caused them all to call time. Funnily enough, former DEEP PURPLE vocalist Ian Gillan was chosen as his replacement. 

Whilst Blackmore carried on climbing the charts with RAINBOW, DIO took matters into his own hands with his eponymously-titled solo project. Their opening salvo, 1983’s Holy Diver, is undeniably quintessential classic metal powered by the very essence of Rising; ridiculous riffs to rock your socks off, keyboards and synths to send you off across soundscapes, and fantasy worlds to explore. It’s a formula Dio would spend the rest of his life exploring, even during his return to BLACK SABBATH and his time with them in HEAVEN & HELL right up until he died in 2010 from stomach cancer. 

Whilst the likes of KISS and RUSH are cornerstones in the caverns of heavy metal history, RAINBOW’s Rising set off more seismic shifts in the scene than any other. Perhaps, more importantly than anything else, it’s an album that’s simply far too fun to listen to – and isn’t that what metal is all about?

Rising was originally released May 15th 1976 via Oyster/Polydor Records. 

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