RAPTURE OF THE DEEP

With the definite departure of Ritchie, the entrance of Steve Morse re-vitalized the band completely. Purpendicular was a stunning debut for Morse, Abandon was rather mediocre and Bananas was really good, though showing a far more heavier band. Rapture of the Deep, on the other hand, still has Deep Purple in good shape with some surprises left to show us.

The album introduces itself with a roaring Hammond-Organ which sets your mind back to the gold days of Machine Head, this is Money Talks(not the AC/DC one). The song carries throughout a dark feel, an aspect that Deep Purple incorporated back in 1984 with Perfect Strangers. I'm not really fond of this feature, the dark feel, not sure if they want to sound bad- ass or something but it really doesn't suit them. However, that's my only complaint, it still has a solid heavy riff and guitar solo from Steve.

Wrong Man has the heavy feel of Bananas with a pretty metal-esque guitar riff backed up by Don's organ. Ian's singing is fantastic, sounding even more mature than in his early days of 'screaming'. Overall a great heavy song.

Girls Like That leaves the heaviness from both previous songs and shows a groovier and a bit poppier sound. Don Airey finally surprises us with an organ solo, not as amusing as those by Jon Lord, but still sounding good.

The title track shows Deep Purple's flexibility in a heavy tune using some odd guitar lines and doing some minor twists and turns with the organ and drums. Steve's and Don's solos are excellent here.

Clearly Quite Absurd is pretty much a clearly quite absurd song. It's a mediocre ballad that fortunately doesn't sound cheesy nor pop-alike. Nothing note-worthy in here though.

Don't Let Go is the modern take on Never Before from Machine Head. Both are extremely catchy with their riffs and chorus', and both have that lovely ending keyboard solo, however Jon Lord's has the best solo for pure originality.

Back to Back comes next, and like other reviewers mentioned before me, this tune has a Coverdale-Hughes era sound. You've got the groove and the synths(!) of that era. It still has heavy bits mind you, so it's much of a perfect balance between groove and heaviness that Deep Purple used to pull-off greatly back in the day of Tommy Bolin.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye begins with Paice's strong and vivid drumming and then moves on to a rockin' style. Steve's delivers another ferocious guitar solo in the middle but more importantly is Don Airey's organ solo that follows Steve's which sounds like a fresh 70's B3 Hammond- Organ, sweet!

Junkyard Blues while it starts like a solid rock song with Steve's unique guitar playing, the song abruptly changes to a very delicate *instrumental* mood which lasts almost 3 minutes! This is probably one of the finest ideas this new line-up has ever occurred of, while it's not a complex instrumental section neither anything related to Prog, it's still amazing with Steve playing once again a highly memorable guitar solo with Don Airey backing up with some piano, which later will be the solo instrument.

Rapture of the Deep finishes with the slow-paced and moody Before Time Began, something that Deep Purple hadn't until now tried. However, once again Deep Purple surprises us with a swift of direction in the middle of the song, playing their own style of hard rock with organ. A great memorable ending.

Overall, a great continuation to Bananas, and this clearly shows us that Don Airey was surely the best fit to replace ''the Lord of the Hammond''. The rest of the band stands greatly, specially Ian Gillan that after all this years he still hasn't lost his amazing voice.

Excellent record with enough variety of styles and surprises that are sure to satisfy any 70's hard rock/heavy prog fan.

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