The sound of the original was indeed not very good. I quite like this album too, but I honestly think it doesn't even come close to the first three with Vivian, let alone the first two that are classics. My all-time favourite Dio album is "The Last In Line". It has the best songs Dio (the band) has ever written.

DE has quite a few fillers. They were attempting to be a little bit more melodic, and it was not always 100 % successful IMHO. I also missed Campbell's playing, I found Goldy a little bit "light" on this album.

I believe Dio has never released a bad record. This said, I feel the albums after TLIL are in places much less inspired. The formula gets a bit old. Same with AC/DC. I mean how many times can you reinvent the wheel? There were some great stuff on all his record, but the first two did not have any fillers IMHO. That's the difference.