VELVET THUNDER

…with Backbone, Romero has really delivered the goods, or at least goods that will appeal massively to fans of the Rainbow and Dio tradition.

I had the good fortune to see Ronnie Romero on his band’s recent UK tour. He’s without doubt an accomplished singer and a great communicator on stage, but if you’d asked the audience members which songs drew them to the gig then I suspect most would say it was to hear Child In Time or Stargazer rather than the handful of tracks from Romero’s sole album of self-penned material. And that’s the quandary that Romero has created for himself. Having shot to fame thanks to Blackmore’s invitation to participate in Rainbow, his name is now intimately tied to Blackmore’s musical legacy despite him fronting a hat full of other bands (Lords Of Black, Elegant Weapons, The Ferrymen, Sunstorm). Having released a couple of albums of covers under his own name, his first real release, Too Many Lies, Too Many Masters, came out in 2023. With this second album of original material, has Romero finally emerged into the spotlight as a solo artist? Let’s jump in and see.

The short swirl of organ that opens the title track raises expectations that the music is going to explode in some sort of Speed King frenzy, especially since it seems to be standard practice these days to open albums with a feast aggressive track that grabs our attention. Romero surprises us though as the organ gives way to a slow and restrained riff and an almost ponderous mid-paced vocal section that can’t help but bring to mind Dio’s work with Rainbow. It’s immensely impressive though as Romero’s drawn-out vocal delivery give the song an epic feel. It would be unfair to compare it to Stargazer, but it does give one that impression of listening to something monumental.

I tried hard to dislike Bring The Rock because of its cringy lyrics – for example, the first chorus goes:  ‘Bring the rock; come to rock again; build up the power’, but Goddammit that chorus and the guitar hook gets under your skin just like….well, another cringy Rainbow song, Long Live Rock n Roll. It’s another mid-paced number, and it’s clear that Romero has stepped back from the more frenetic and often power metal approach of Too Many Lies, Too Many Masters. For me, that’s positive news as it gives the songs more time to breathe and for Romero to impress us with his faultless voice.

The surprises continue with Lost In Time, something of a power ballad with a gorgeous melodic line. There’s some excellent guitar work from Jose Rubio. He can play fast licks when needed but here his work is more soulful and restrained. Rubio’s skills don’t end there since he also mixed and mastered the album, and this is one of the tracks where you can sense his expert hand at work.

Two grittier numbers, Never Felt This Way and Lonely World, get the feet tapping nicely, and they are separated by the contrasting Hideaway (Run) which has more of an ‘80s AOR feel – not surprisingly since it was written by Russ Ballard.  It does sound distinctly different from the rest of the material on this album, and to these ears is the weakest track. While these three songs become a little predictable, things change with one of the highlights in Keep On Falling. It opens with some mournful Schenker sounding guitar and appears to be another ballad before it unexpectedly explodes into a grinding Iommi-styles blues riff accompanied by surging organ. It’s quite unlike anything else I’ve heard Romero produce and it’s quite brilliant!

Into the home run, Eternally is irresistible, thanks mostly to an absolute earworm of a guitar line, while Running Over returns to the epic mid-paced tones of the title track but ends in less than four minutes when it could have been another standout track if developed a bit more. The album closes with Black Dog – no, not a cover of the Zeppelin classic but the one track on this album that rushes along at breakneck speed. ‘Black Dog is coming, he can find you the bone’ is another odd lyric and the song is decent enough without quite taking off. Perhaps after all the epic tones that preceded it, this straight hard rock number feels like a bit of a letdown. It might have been a better opening track than a closing one.

I, for one, was a little disappointed with Too Many Lies, Too Many Masters but with Backbone, Romero has really delivered the goods, or at least goods that will appeal massively to fans of the Rainbow and Dio tradition. It’s a consistently strong album, and there are at least half a dozen tracks that I’d be happy to hear in the live set at the expense of the old nuggets presently there.  Coming back to my starting question: yes, I do think Backbone marks the emergence of Romero as a solo artist in his own right.