PERFECT STRANGERS

Lumps of cash.... I guess the real meaning behind this co eback album relies on the amount of money offered to them for a comeback. It was very difficult from the start. Ritchie as usual the workaholic he is would want to rehearse from morning and the other members would come late in the afternoon and he would then leave and not want to rehearse at all. They all gathered in a castle in England for this effort but the tentions between ritchie and the others were ever present from start. The record has a very catchy sound and for most part sounds flat or if i may say a far cry from a band that litterally founded and broke grounds for classic rock. It really runs thru like a sound check and leaves you wondering when the real tracks are to begin, ritchie sounds bored and doesent seem to input as he would like had he had a helm for its direction. Ritchie personally dismisses the record in his book and states that he dislikes the way it was conceived. gillans approach to the lyrics are beyond his superb ability to conjuncture a melody almost to the point of paroding the tunes to dismay or failure to write straight out rock n roll. "knocking at your back door" as he stated once really talks about anal sex, beleive or not and most of the other material here is so flatout weak that it would or should have been shelver, reworked or even withheld altogether before this result. Its bad and they know it. Jon lord however does show a superb ability to infere his legendary talent into the totle track and manages to save the day for most part, paice maintains his traditional jazzy percussionist midtempo drumming impecably well but the record just doesent appeal compared to earlier productions. I wish they would scrap all the songs from here and kept only the tiltle track and knocking at your back door for starters. Ritchie is capable of infusing tremendous riffs and should be kept at the helm almost single handedly because the greatest efforts this bands achieved almost always started by the ideas hes brought to the table. Ritchie always was a difficult person to work with and he almost always refrains when things dont go his way. The tour behind this release proved ti be so outstanding that it was extended twice and proves whats this band is really good at: touring. They play live really well together. A really well lubed machine deep purple is my favorite band all time and a lot of material they put out is realy underrated but it is easy to understand how failure comes to collective creation between them when Ritchie doesent reign as king. Hes likely the best guitarrist ever with and outstanding feel precision with riffs that require brain surgery to leave your ears, but his genious ways in what he creates leaves him alone in the process of creation and thats very difficult in band witha caliber such as deep purple. Perfect stranger has its place in rock history but its just a glimpse of what could have been had the proper production taken place. They sold shows to masses no doubt but had the direction been toward a more a progressive stance zeppelin ish approach probobly we would have gotten the best out of these musicians versus a poppy feel happy rock album made by a record company witha sole purpuce of making money.