Ronnie James Dio has long been considered (along with Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford) one of the best metal singers of all time, if not the best. He was the vocalist for Elf, Rainbow and Black Sabbath before going out on his own. His first record with Black Sabbath “Heaven and Hell” is one of the all-time best heavy metal records ever. He was still going strong with that band with 2009 release “The Devil You Know” when he was diagnosed with cancer. He died six months later.

Gone, but not forgotten, his estate has been releasing a steady stream of live albums and reissues for Dio’s fans to sink their teeth into. A tribute album such as “This Is Your Life” was certainly due. While a cynic might scream “cash grab”, Dio was so beloved and respected that I can only imagine the list of bands wanting to be included on this record was immense. As is, there is incredible star-power here including heavy hitters like Motorhead, Rob Halford, Scorpions and Metallica. The majority of the covers stay true to the originals: Anthrax lays down a mean version of “Neon Knights” and Tenacious D does their thing on “The Last In Line”. Corey Taylor from Slipknot/Stone Sour does a surprisingly convincing “Rainbow in the Dark”. Metallica mixes things up with a medley of songs from Dio’s time in Rainbow. If you listen to Dio’s live records, he was quite fond of doing medleys, so thematically this fits in quite nicely. The album closes with the title track as performed by Dio himself.

While cover records usually include a number of more adventurous takes on an artist’s back catalogue, “This Is Your Life” doesn’t stray too far. Instead we have a collection of bands paying respect to one of the all time greats.