Deep Purple - InFinite 2017
On April 7th of this year, world rock legend Deep Purple released a new album. This is the 20th studio album. In the promo, the band declares the obvious fact of the end of its more than fifty years of existence. Most of the photographs are arranged in a winter atmosphere and evoke the final period of life. In a magazine caption, the musicians declare that their retirement will be as chaotic as their entire career, but in statements regarding their relationships with each other (especially Gillan vs. Blackmore), things are a bit more conciliatory. The release of the album will be accompanied by a fairly massive world tour, on which the band will not miss Prague. In the US, Alice Cooper and the Edgar Winter Band will join the band for a few shows.
The InFinite album contains ten tracks in the basic version, but there are also options with bonus tracks in the form of a DVD, NOW What?!! vinyl, a t-shirt, or added, previously unreleased tracks. The names of the musicians are truly awe-inspiring. Ian Gillan - singer, a true rocker who has tried his hand at solo work, as well as, for example, Jesus in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar (Rice and Lloyd Webber). Don Airey - keyboardist who has played in perhaps every major rock band and is a permanent member of the band after Jon Lord's retirement. Roger Glover and Ian Paice - a rhythm section that set the hard rock bar so high that most bassists and drummers can't even reach it, let alone jump it. And finally Steve Morse - the guitarist who occupies the sensitive position left by the problematic but brilliant Ritchie Blackmore. It can be stated quite easily that the band is pedalling along brilliantly. You can hear the keyboards a little more than before and at some points the registers used are a little unexpected, but overall it doesn't matter. Gillan is very good, if a little too disciplined for a rocker of his caliber. The guitar is excellent, and the rhythm guitar is convincing, needless to say. The quality and good tradition are more evident in the first part of the album. The opener, "Time for Bedlam" (Bedlam apparently meaning a refuge for the mentally ill and not a transcription of the word Bethelem) evokes a mysterious atmosphere with a harmonic paraphrase of temple polyphony. The song was the hook of the single, which gave listeners a taste of the feast yet to come. However, this is not a banquet. The tasting is more than just a spoiler. The B-side of the single, the swinging "All I've Got Is You" (on album #3), has nice guitar licks and a sympathetic tempo. "Hip Boots" may be based on the standard four-quarter scheme, but the Parplos play around with the rhythms a bit here, and it's obvious that they enjoy complicating the composition. The album goes downhill somewhat with invention as the end approaches. The hard to understand added effect to Gillan's vocals in "Birds of Pray" overshadows the good riff that the track is built on. The inclusion of the Doors' original "Roadhouse Blues" is also surprising, in a version that doesn't surpass the original, and has a running time in excess of six minutes. It's as if the band was running a little short of breath. While it's nice to hear the matadors of hard rock music reminisce, we have to expect more from the writers of "Smoke on the Water" or "Highway Star."