The writing was on the wall for MK 1 DIO come the third long player ‘’Sacred Heart’’ Rising tensions between singer and guitarist where beginning to unravel the strands that had delivered the previous two well received albums. It’s not that ‘’Sacred Heart’’ doesn’t start with a crash bang wallop.

The raucous and curiously live opener ‘’King Of Rock N Roll” is a stab of high voltage classic DIO which in turn opens into yet another epic and lyrically confusing classic from Ronnie James in the Progressive tinged title track but from there on in this is too much of a visit down memory lane (and only two albums in!) and way too much filler ‘’Another Lie’’ sounds like a harder edge KISS whereas ‘’Rock N Roll Children’’ drums up some support with it’s ‘’Holy Diver’’ type echo but ‘’Hungry For Heaven’’ is such sheer nonsense not even Ronnie James’s voice can save this turkey or the fairly decent solo for soon to be out going guitarist Vivian Campbell.

It then all down hill rather too quickly for my liking as ‘’Like The Beat Of My Heart, ‘’Just Another Day’’ and ‘’Fallen Angels’’ pass by hardly registering any interest. Surprisingly the VAN HALEN-esque Hard Rock simplicity of ‘’Shoot Shoot’’ closes the album on a high note but does nothing to rescue this album from anything other than the mundane. (Online November 6, 2005)