It's hard to believe the "reunion" period of Deep Purple has lasted for 30 years, far longer than the band's original period of existence. Steve Morse has long unseated Ritchie Blackmore in the role of "longtime Deep Purple guitarist", having logged 20 consecutive years with the band. Another amazing stat before I move on: only two members of the band (Ian Paice and Roger Glover) have appeared on all of the past nine albums.
Nine albums! One more and they will have equaled their original output and maybe we'll have to call the 1968-1976 era the "prelude" of the band's tenure. Nah, I don't think it will ever come to that, but the past 30 years have given the fans plenty of music and drama. Recently, we reviewed Slaves and Masters, which was the first album to wreck the restored harmony of the reformed Mark II lineup, and generally perceived by many fans as a dishonest album. Needless to say the band got the message and restored Ian Gillan for The Battle Rages On, another contender for Worst Deep Purple Album. After a tension-wracked tour perhaps only paralleled by Queensrhyche's current fiascoes, Ritchie Blackmore quit the group, assuming that the band would quickly unravel following his departure, just as it had the last time he exited the group.
He couldn't have been more wrong. Initially they did flounder, vainly trying to coax Jeff Beck to their ranks, followed by a fun but ultimately fruitless few gigs with Joe Satriani. Suddenly, help arrived from an unlikely (and to many Purple loyalists, unknown) source in ex-Dixie Dregs, ex-Kansas, ex-Steve Morse Band (oops, spoiler alert) axe-specialist Steve Morse. For this intrepid blogger, enjoying his sophomore year of college, Purpendicular was the most eagerly anticipated new album by a band who was going to have to deliver the goods or call it a day. Needless to say, the album was a potent (vitamin) shot in the arm, and while it didn't burn up the charts, the band was happy and the fans satisfied. Who could ask for anything more?
The re-energized band immediately took to the road to make up for lost time and within two years (record time in the reunion era) released another album, Abandon. Abandon smoothed over any perceived instabilities of the previous album, but lacked that album's spark. It was a "safe" album and comfortably locked them into a "serial touring" operation, bringing the hits to the masses.
When Jon Lord retired from the band, the long lasting reunion era hit its next crisis point. The following album, Bananas, would put the band back on the spot again, needing to prove: (1) Don Airey was an adequate replacement for Jon Lord, (2) an outside producer (Michael Bradford) would help their sound, and (3) the album title wasn't a joke. Bananas turned out to be a fun and adventurous album, putting to rest any fears that Deep Purple was now toothless without its original guitar-and-keys duellists.
So, a whole lot of preamble to get us to the main event here, Rapture of the Deep. It's probably the sternest title of any album since The Battle Rages On, but even this one still smacks of wordplay courtesy of Gillan, Glover & Co. I mean, how many Deep Purple compilations have used "purple" somewhere in their title, while poor "deep" is utterly neglected? This album retains some of the fun from Bananas, building on what worked in that album, namely getting Morse and Airey to create Instrument Duel 2.0, which was only getting started on that album. It's a more cohesive album as well; the songs move from one to the next very well. However, like Abandon, it was another "safe" album, not breaking a whole lot of new ground, and launching the band into an even more prolonged "greatest hits touring" mentality. When I last saw them in 2011, only one song remained in the setlist (the title track), which Gillan said was from the "new album...which is actually pretty old now". In fact, the amount of time until the release of Now What?! in 2013 rivaled the gap between Come Taste the Band and Perfect Strangers, when the band was broken up.
Nevertheless, Rapture of the Deep is a class act by a classy band. They should be a lesson to their peers in the art of growing older and wiser with grace while still standing by rock and roll.
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