THE VILLAGE LANTERNE

This 2006 collection is Blackmore's Night's fifth studio album and their latest release at time of writing. "The village lanterne" finds them developing and refining their craft further. While no new barricades are broken here, there is an overall air of confidence and competence; the result of each consecutive album being another step up the ladder.

The album begins in relatively soft mood, with the opening "25 years" and the following title track both being highly melodic numbers charged with emotion. The latter builds through a renaissance flavoured instrumental, while telling a tale inspired by a Siegfried legend. Candice Night delivers one of her finest vocal performances on the song, her controlled vocals cumulating in a powerful climax.

It is only when we get to "I guess it doesn't matter anymore" that we find the first of the up-tempo songs, this being high energy pop orientated romp. Later, "Just call my name" follows a similar pattern. The two part "Faerie Queen/Faerie dance" sounds remarkably like a Loreena McKennitt number, Night adopting an unusually high key for the vocals. The second half of the song is a traditional (perhaps Eastern European or Romany) sounding folk dance.

As has become the modus operandi for the song-writing, Ritchie Blackmore is largely responsible for the melodies while Candice Night provides the lyrics. Ritchie provides a couple of his customary instrumentals which serve as high quality link numbers. In a rare excursion from this pattern, the centre piece of the album is three cover versions interrupted by a Blackmore instrumental. The first of these is Joan Osbourne's "St Teresa", a song which had previously been an unrecorded feature of the band's live act. Here, after a soft acoustic instrumental introduction, the song is given a full blown up-tempo rock treatment.

After Ritchie's gentle acoustic "Village dance", we have perhaps the biggest surprise of all. Ritchie revives his instrumental "Mond tanz" from the "Shadow of the moon" album, giving it a fresh arrangement along the way. This then segues into a rendition of Deep Purple's "Child in time". While Blackmore's Night's cover of "Soldier of fortune" may have been no great surprise, who would have thought that Ritchie would have been prepared to take one of Deep Purple's most famous anthems and adapt it for Blackmore's Night? The rendition here is in heavily edited format, devoid of the epic screams and long guitar/keyboards solos, but the delightful vocal talents of the Sisters of the Moon duo and some lead guitar from Ritchie make for a fine alternative take on the song. OK, so strictly speaking it might be argued that this is not a cover version, but in reality it is.

The final song of this quartet is a cover of Ralph McTell's best known composition "Streets of London". Here, it is as if Blackmore's Night have benefited from all the previous cover versions of this song, thus creating the definitive version (apart perhaps from McTell's non-orchestrated original).

"The old mill inn" is an unashamed attempt by Blackmore and Night to secure free drinks at their local for life, by name-checking the entire staff and clientele. By way of contrast, the following "Windmills" reverts to gentle acoustics and a reflective melody to tell a traditional tale.

The second CD with the deluxe edition of the album includes two extra tracks. The more interesting of these is a second version of the final track on the album "Street of dreams" which features vocals by Joe Lynn Turner (once of Rainbow). Also included is a PC video featuring a 20 minute interview with Blackmore and Night, plus a trailer for their "Castles and Dreams" DVD.

Overall, there is a slight but perceptible turn back towards the folk side of the band after the stronger rock influences of the last two albums. There is though no great change here, if the previous albums appealed to you, there is no doubt that this one will too.

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