Until very recently, Rainbow CDs were always extremely scarce in the used bins around here. In fact, I saw this album about 20 years ago in a pawn shop (coincidentally also for $2) and it might have been my very first Rainbow CD...had the disc actually been in the case.
Only songs I was really familiar with previously were the tremendous cover of "Since You Been Gone" (which I'll always have a soft spot for) and of course "All Night Long," which isn't the worst song for this kind of upbeat stuff, but I've become rather tired of hearing it. I was quite curious about the entire album, because I'd long heard from many metal fans that everything post-Dio was Blackmore's decline into writing more radio-friendly stuff. I don't even disagree with the sentiment in general, but I wouldn't call something like "Death Alley Driver" particularly commercial, and it's one of my favorite Rainbow songs ever, so there are obvious exceptions.
Aside from "All Night Long," probably the most egregious examples of poppiness come from the choruses to "Makin' Love" and "Danger Zone," which I'm not fond of. "Eyes of the World" opens with a cool Don Airey intro that sounds a bit like the beginning of Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War. Unfortunately it doesn't segue into any "Am I Evil?" riffage, but track itself is solid (and the only song here that really sounds anything like the Dio-era stuff to any great degree). The obvious highlight here is "Lost in Hollywood," one of the best Rainbow tracks ever done.
I don't think I'll ever be a particularly huge Rainbow fan, and every album I've heard has some unevenness to it. This is no different, but I quite liked it overall. Graham Bonnet is in prime form here (even if I greatly prefer the Alcatrazz debut >:) ).
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