Lock Up The Wolves Songs Ranked

Lock Up the Wolves is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Dio, released on May 15, 1990. It displayed a complete change of musician line-up over the previous Dream Evil album, including 18-year-old guitarist Rowan Robertson, and Simon Wright on drums who had played with AC/DC from 1983 to 1989. The song “Evil on Queen Street” takes its title from a deli in Toronto which had a sandwich with that name—per Dio on Much Music in 1990. Guitarist Rowan Robertson stated that two more songs were written and demoed for the album but left off at the decision of Wendy Dio: “Hell Wouldn’t Take Her” and “The River Between Us”. Here are all of Lock Up The Wolves songs ranked.

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11. Night Music

“The lyrics remind me of “Night People”, but instrumentally the song is very different. Interesting theme, reoccurring in Dio’s lyrics, about escaping reality and living inside something greater than this world. Or maybe I just make this stuff up, who knows?”

10. Evil On Queen Street

“he lyrics get EVEN BETTER. This song has some blues mixed into the Dio sound which works great. I remember listening to this song for the first time, feeling the emotion Dio puts into the lyrics and thinking SO HARD to understand what he is talking about. I think I understand some of it now, but it’s still a mess really. Again, such an underrated poet.”

9. Born On the Sun

“A really strong song, not only lyrically but just as well instrumentally its almost flawless. Doesn’t really stick out enough for top rating but almost. Continuing from wild one this is an awesome track, the closing and the chorus is superb.”

See more: Dio Albums Ranked

8. Twisted

“This song is getting a bit more aggressive and “Dehumanizerish” in a way. Everybody’s twisted. Well I can agree on that. You can feel the anger and the hate flow through you as you listen to this. Might demand a certain mood to be enjoyed, but still great stuff.”

7. Why Are You Watching Me

“I really like how Rowan plays on this one. One of the few great underrated players that knows how to put an intro, a middle part and a peak on his few seconds of solo on every song.”

6. Hey Angel

“This song delivers pure magic emotion, in all instruments but of course most apparent in Dio’s voice and lyrics. What is this song about? A goodbye to someone who took suicide? At least that’s what I’ve heard, makes sense imo. Either way, it is a masterpiece.”

5. Walk on Water

“The lyrics still hold up, very interesting stuff here. There are lots of other tracks that stand out more though. Awesome fast paced tune, awesome solo and lyrics as always.”

See more: Dio Songs Ranked

4. My Eyes

“Dio’s own tribute to himself? No, that’s not what it is, even though there is a point within that statement. Dio talks about his journey through life by mentioning songs like “Stargazer” and “Heaven and Hell”, what always creeped me out is that he also says “Could the dreamer be turning to stone?”. Since the song “Turn to Stone” was released ten full years after this album on “Magica”, it must be a coincidence, or is it? This song is however the closest Dio gets to cliché, stuff like “Keeper of Rainbows, collector of lies” might be a bit too much. It’s debatable though, a very strong song nevertheless”

3. Between Two Hearts

“Still great stuff, somehow the theme reminds me of what’s to come on Dehumanizer and (even more) Strange Highways with the injustices and the helpless weak individual. But the magic is not as strong as in “Hey Angel”.

2. Wild One

“From Neon Knights, through Stand up and Shout and up until here, Dio kicks off the album with an uptempo track. It is good, really good, but maybe a bit too standardized hard rock for my taste. The lyrics and melodies are great though. The guitar playing gets better on other tracks”

1. Lock Up the Wolves

“This title track shouldn’t disappoint anyone. The metaphors are on the same level as this worlds greatest poets, the music is great, it’s got the Dio sound but everything has changed in a way not entirely explainable. That applies to the whole album in general as well.”