Those eight words should suffice as a review, right? After all, what more need be said? Sadly, quite a lot.

No-one with a rudimentary grasp of heavy metal over the past forty years cannot not know about Dio and his many contributions to metal, whether it be solo or as the frontman for Rainbow and Black Sabbath; but his once awesome voice simply isn't up to scratch here. As for the tracklist, only four are taken from his last two (at the time) albums, with the remainder focused on classics from his extensive career -- and not just his solo work, either. Which may sound good, but this is not his first release, and plenty of live versions already exist of "Heaven and Hell" and "Holy Diver", while albums from the late Eighties and Nineties are conspicuous by their absence. The highlight may just be the extended and excellent guitar solo by Doug Aldrich.

Despite all this, I enjoyed _Evil or Divine_ immensely; Dio on a bad day is still better than many others, and even if a live version of "Man on the Silver Mountain" is shop worn, it's still a classic. Money spent on this would not be wasted, but neither would it be an optimal use of your hard-earned bucks.