UNDER A VIOLET MOON

To be perfectly honest, I always refer to Blackmore's Night as the project that killed Ritchie Blackmore, and now I can go a step further and say that I can call "Under A Violet Moon" the album the buried him. First off, it absolutely amazes me that Ritchie would throw away all of the images he's created over the years, by that I mean the revered Deep Purple axe- man, and just go and play mandolin with his wife while wearing stupid hats. Now Deep Purple should even listen to one of Blackmore's Night's albums, under NO circumstances. A little harsh but completely true. Now about the album:

The whole album just reeks of that cheesy Renaissance throw-back style, and the gypsy aura surrounding all of the instrumental works can get so incredibly testing that it's beyond belief. Did somebody order some repetitive, cliché lyrics? You got em, just take the title track as an example. You would think the two lines in the chorus are the only words in the song! Don't even get me going on the cover song attempt, Rainbow's "Self Portrait" being the massacre victim. Not even Rainbow's best song, but there is no need to massacre it here.

To sum it all up, there is absolutely nothing that is actually listenable to normal ears on this album. The only saving grace for me is Ritchie's all to short guitar solo in "Gone With The Wind", which is a dark track to begin with. Just take it from me, leave this one on the shelf. It's not even worth a penny.