PURPENDICULAR

After the last dissapointing studio album "The Battle Rages On" which I gave two stars, this was a great return to form! Steve Morse added a fresh breath of life. What I like about this album is that it doesn´t feel like it´s forced creativity (Bananas comes to mind)

The album kicks off with "Vavoom:Ted the mechanic" and this track basically says this is a new Deep Purple and Morsey is in the house! Great opener and some really good guitar work.

After this great rocker things cool down a bit (in going a bit softer) "Loosen my strings"(With some great bass playing by Roger Glover) and "soon Forgotten" seem to glide into each other. Then comes a Deep Purple classic, "Sometimes I feel like sreaming" It begins slowly and has some great soul searching guitar work by Steve Morse. Now this is just fantastic guitar!! (a lot of fast runs up the fretboard balanced with a strong, sweet melody) This is undoubtedly the best track on this album.

"I´m not your lover now" is the first not so good track ,and I usually find myself skipping this one. "The Aviator" has a celtic feel to it and is done acoustically. Beautiful song!

"Rosa´s Cantina" has a great chugging beat to it and lets your mind wonder, I always seem to picture some bar in Mexico! "A castle full of rascals" is a good solid rocker with some interesting lyrics by Gillan.

Another soft song "A touch away" really sounds so peaceful that one almost gets that "all is right with the world" feeling. "Hey Cisco" shows Purple is still a band to be reckoned with and show just what top musicians they are, Morse and Lord really shine on this track. The second not too good track is "Somebody stole my guitar" which is very mediocre for a band like Purple, one would expect more.. The bluesy "Purpendicular Waltz" finishes the album with a different ,modern and interesting type of blues.

So saying that there are two "not so good" tracks, you will probably wonder why I am giving this album four stars? The answer to that my friends is it was produced by Roger Glover. He has done a fantastic job as producer and this is why this album is so highly recommended.