BANANAS

I don't review many, if any albums these days. It's an exercise in vanity, rhetoric and farting against the wind. That said, after reading all of the very lowly reviews that Deep Purple Bananas received on this site I had to chime in and come to the defense of this GREAT Deep Purple album.

First of all, people, please stop living in the past. Yes, Jon Lord was the lord of the keys and Ritchie Blackmore inspired tens of thousands of shredders and E-minor-Phrygian-mode copy cats. But this new line up rocks and ROCKS HARD. I'd dare say that the Deep never grooved this hard.....EVER!

That's saying a mouthful, I know. But take it from this ol' guy who's listened to every version and variant of the DP lineup and NEVER has DP grooved and funked this hard. In fact, I have to wear a football mouth piece when I listen to this album, for if I don't, I end up with a bloody lower lip. That's how badly I want to bite down, and swoop and turn and bop and drop and twist and jump when listening to this MASTERPIECE of modern rock music.

Not only is this a completely and utterly progressive album, it's one of THE BEST albums of it genre. We're talking Steve Morse and Ian Gillan at the top of their game. Don Airey does a magnificent job at filling in for the Lord of the B3. He and Morse throw down some NASTY runs against each other, reminiscent of John McLaughlin and Jan Hammer and their raunchiest.

If you like HEAVY GROOVES with FUNKY, SOULFUL VOCALS, all wrapped up in Deep Purple, then Bananas is your ticket to aural paradise.