Straight Between the Eyes (Rainbow, 1982)

One of the joys of being a Deep Purple fan is that the band has a lot of interesting roots and branches to explore. I consider it to be the silver lining for a band that was considerably less stable that its big-name peers in the 1970's. Some of these branches, like Glenn Hughes in Trapeze, Ian Gillan's assorted projects or Nick Simper in Warhorse, making for special listening experiences, the kind of stuff that never would have appeared on my radar if I hadn't followed Deep Purple very closely. However, not every branch is solid gold, which is sort of how I feel about latter-day Rainbow.

Rainbow could have been so much more. Ritchie Blackmore had just the right persona to be a major figure in heavy metal, but by 1979 he turned away from all of that to pursue a much more commercial direction, effectively parting ways with the NWOBHM sound he inadvertently helped to launch. His unlikely partner in forging the "new" Rainbow was Roger Glover, who quit Deep Purple in 1973 before Ritchie could fire him. Whereas the early Rainbow albums maybe had a few commercial nods here and there, in the later albums, listeners must sift through a much slicker commercial sound for remnants of the old sound.

Straight Between the Eyes continues the increasingly commercial trajectory launched with Down to Earth (1979) and continued by Difficult to Cure (1981). The opening track, "Death Alley Driver", in spite of some lame lyrics by Joe Lynn Turner, harkens back to the more showy age of Blackmore, complete with a duel by newbie/hired gun keyboard player Dave Rosenthal. Most of the rest of the songs are fairly undistinguished, being either gushy Turner ballads ("Stone Cold", actually a low-level hit single) or arena rock stuff ("Rock Fever", "Power"). It isn't crap, but it's a letdown, both from the opening track's promises as well as material from the bygone era of Ronnie James Dio and Cozy Powell. There's a bit of a save in the final track, "Eyes of Fire", but overall it feels like Rainbow is strangling itself in a vain attempt to emulate bands like Foreigner and crack the elusive American charts.

Bent Out of Shape, released the following year, would continue the "downward spiral" - I use the quotes because that's more my own hindsight feelings. In fact, most of the 1980's albums brought increasingly financial success to the band, although it seems that they were cresting on the charts around this time, one of a number of factors that brought Deep Purple back together in 1984.

For a recap of the Rainbow story, check out this earlier post.