There are a few forces in the universe that the mere power of the grave cannot tame, and the foremost of these is the late metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who’s band Dio will be releasing a new compilation album, appropriately titled The Very Beast Of Vol 2. Not so much a ‘best of’ as a selective collection, the album focuses entirely on the oft-overlooked period of Dio’s career that spanned the early 2000s. Killing the Dragon, Magica and Masters of the Moon all get their due, but it is the hard-to-come by tracks (Prisoner of Paradise), and the future promise of unreleased material that is most exciting.
Drummer and good friend of Dio, Simon Wright, has revealed that there is a selection of material hidden away in the Dio Cave, but they’re up to the discretion of widow and manager, Wendy: ”There were three, or four, songs that he had been working on for Magica II and III. They were just demos, unfortunately. Wendy is in charge of all that and I am not sure what will happen. At some point, maybe, they will come out. We will have to see what Wendy wants us to do with them.”
He added, “You would have to be careful on how you approached it. You would not want to overstep your bounds. We would have to sit and listen to them and see how far he got with them. We would do it with totally respect and we would have to do it delicately.” You can read an entire interview with Wright here.

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