BANANAS

From 2003, Deep Purple proves they can still rock hard. However, this is a prog music site and BANANAS offers little. Much of this reminds me of late- era Blue Oyster Cult. Maybe it's the singer? So maybe BOC with an organ. Lots of styles here metal rock, trippy, blues, ballads, hard rock...quite a mix. By no means could this be called a bad album, except for the terrible cover. Deep Purple made some great album covers, and this ain't one! Ugh. Aside from "House of Pain" and the mellow spacey "Never a word" the music is pretty standard. Not bad but just not treat. Average Deep Purple release. 3 stars, actually about 2 1/2 stars bumped up.