BANANAS

This is going to be an easy one to rate and comment. First they didn´t repeat the album; they left the heaviness present on Abandon. In my opinion, they went to the other extreme; creating what can be considered one of their softest efforts. There are here some slow pace songs that sustains this assessment; the clear and soft ballad "Haunted" and the blues based "Walk On".

The opener "House Of Pain" is a favorite of mine; they always have a good opener to apply in their works. This is the song that can be used to bring reflections about the way we music appreciators were seeing Deep Purple at that time. The path chosen seems not to make us fan base happy. In what sense ? Ok, the album is not AOR like that poor sound contaminating several bands in the eighties; but is not what we like to hear them sounding. And how can we present our wishes ? That´s simple; for our prog mind "House Of Pain" is too short and doesn´t give conditions for the band to develop their instrumental interlude which makes them master musicians. Bob Ezrin noticed that, Ian Gillan confirms this in interviews and the results was two masterpieces to be soon released in 2013 and 2017.

As a conclusion, this is easily a good but not essencial work. Could be much better; it is only to consider them using the approach that Bob Ezrin would bring soon to their sound; imagine "House Of Pain" receiving the production "Hell to Pay" from "Now, What" received. Oh, what an upgrade that would be...