review by thomas

Compared to ”Rising” this one is much more rock than heavy metal. After Ritchie Blackmore left Purple he took the band Elf (Elf was often support band to Deep Purple), got rid of the guitarist, and used it as his back-up band. The singer in Elf was one Ronnie James Dio, the only survivor after Ritchie fired everyone else and got new recruits for “Rising”. The tempo of the songs are much slower than the songs on “Rising” and later albums. Standout tracks includes “Man on the Silver Mountain”, “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves”, “Catch the Rainbow” – all of them concert classics – and the more overlooked “Self Portrait”. Rainbow even tried to rock out in an early sixties way with “If You Don’t Like Rock ‘N’ Roll”, easily the worst moment on the album. Here are also two covers present: a good version of “Black Sheep of the Family” and an instrumental version of the Yardbirds’ “Still I’m Sad”, a song which Rainbow then included, as a vocalized version, in their live set for quite some time. The song is a decent one but not something I listen to each time I give this record a spin. And there are a couple of more songs like it: decent or semi-satisfying ones.

Great vocals and guitar, some good organ here and there and at the top four great songs.