Album Review: Long Shadows Dawn - Isle Of Wrath

Doogie White has sang with Rainbow, a few of Michael Schenker's projects, and he's the current singer of one version of Alcatrazz. The common thread to everything he's ever been on is that it's..... music. Doogie has a solid voice, but either he is not much of a songwriter himself, or he has been in groups without a great songwriter in their ranks, as everything I've ever heard has been rather boring. So we can start this off by saying I am not excited by the prospect of getting a double dose of Doogie, with this new collaboration coming out now, and an album with Alcatrazz following in a couple of months. All of these musicians in multiple bands need to do a better job of spacing out their releases, because being too present is just as bad as being absent. But I digress.

The idea of this project is to make the sort of music Rainbow was known for in the Joe Lynn Turner days. That aim does give the project needed direction, and it was smart not to aim for the original Rainbow sound, because that wouldn't be possible to capture. Doogie dosn't have Dio's vocal charisma, and Emil Norberg doesn't have the same flair and panache Blackmore did, so sticking to the simpler, more radio friendly version of Rainbow is the best course of action.

Perhaps there is something to be said for making your influences completely obvious. By writing in the style of 80s Rainbow, there's a blueprint already in place that gives these musicians a structure to work off. For being a singer I have always found to have utterly boring melodies, Doogie is much more appealing here than I've ever heard before. The bits of AOR that creep in not only make the album that much more appealing, show a different side of Doogie. Since there would not be a point in having yet another band doing the same thing he always has, I find it interesting how the minor shift leads to more dramatic results.

As the album unfolds, it doesn't have the fire or the energy of a young and hungry band, but it does bear all the hallmarks of a quality, veteran record. It's an album of solid songs that evoke the exact feeling they are shooting for, and I get a feeling of exceeded expectations all throughout. By the halfway point of the record, I'm already declaring this the best record Doogie has been on that I can remember. That phrase is important, actually, since I don't remember much of the others I've heard. That's the problem.

In some respects, I think this album is what the Sunstorm record from earlier in the year was supposed to be. Both have the DNA of Turner-era Rainbow in them, but this album makes that clear, while Sunstorm's talk sounded more like a rationale to explain the changes that were made.

So there are a couple of conclusions to draw from "Isle Of Wrath". One is that Doogie White finally has a project that gives him a proper way to showcase his talents. The other is that if you're going to be doing 80s nostalgia, there are ways to do so that don't horribly date your music. By choosing Hammond organs over artificial synths, you can totally hear the time Long Shadows Dawn is aiming for, but this record doesn't sound like an artifact out of time. I'm sick of the 80s wave, so thank heavens for that.

That means "Isle Of Wrath" is a perfectly enjoyable record.