Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
You could spend your entire life Waiting for a Sign, for the starting pistol trigger to show the potential of being pulled, of the moment when you know that the memories being made are more than just draws of memorabilia and junk. You could spend all your whole existence in search of that symbol which shines and calls out, “here is the beginning”, when in reality all you need is the gumption to understand, the sign was there all along, you just kept ignoring it.
It never pays to dismiss a sign, whether it is one that illuminates the sky in a flash of an exploding star, or one that has taken a while to come to fruition itself, the pistol having been pulled but the referee unsure of the sound that might come out at the end.
For the first time in over 20 years Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow have made sure that illumination comes with a sign of what is to come as they release their first single since 1996 and it is one that does get under the skin and finds itself, despite the time spent away from the solo song journey, feeling appreciated because of its depth and strength, the inscription not placed down in chalk and easily wiped from the memory, but welded on, indestructible, a mark of respect to which Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow truly do deserve.
A new single after so long away from the domain can be seen as one of searching for answer or direction that wasn’t required, the album always being arguably the finer form in which bands such as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow would lay down the expressions which reflected the age.
Yet in this one offering comes a sense of opening up the drawbridge once again, the Rock and Metal defences coming down and the peek behind the curtain voluntarily shown. It is a single that befits the point of the album to come; if in Memories In Rock shall we seek protection and homeliness, then we also need to strike out and venture forth into new lands, once explored with the intention of conquering, but now with the noble impression of offering sanctuary to all out in the fields and being deserted by alienation from all genres.
You can wait forever for the right sign, quite often you only have to look for the Rainbow, in any guise, to know the day is going to be memorable.
Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow release their new album, Memories In Rock II on April 6th.
Ian D. Hall