Rainbow Releases Two New Songs for First Time in 20 Years

Last week we got the first release of new music from Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow in over 20 years. Since his retirement from rock in 1997 Blackmore has been focused on his renaissance music band Blackmore's Night with his wife Candice Night. That is definitely a long time to wait without any new rock n' roll from a guitar legend. The man in black released two tracks: Land of Hope and Glory and a rerecording of I Surrender (both can be listened to at the bottom).

Land of Hope and Glory is just an instrumental version of the classic patriotic Edward Elgar song from 1902 (it's better known as Pomp and Circumstance, which gets played at EVERY graduation EVER). Anyone who has followed Rainbow long enough is familiar with I Surrender, though this version has current Rainbow singer Ronnie Romero on the mic.

Personally I (and many other Blackmore fans) feel this is a rather lackluster return to rock n' roll for Blackmore. There definitely isn't any fire and passion in his playing in these recordings. Plus, most of us would have preferred a Ronnie James Dio era tune if he was going to redo an old song. I know he did these couple of songs just for fun, but I think we were all expecting a little more. Plus, the rhythm section and keys sound kind of like they were programmed by a computer. I realize Blackmore will never make a full return to rock, but I don't think any of us like being teased like this.

Land of Hope and Glory

I Surrender