RAPTURE OF THE DEEP

I own every version of this cd...and it's good, probably one of the best DP has ever released. The decision to review this album hasn't been easy to take, because Deep Purple is not a former progressive rock band, BUT "Rapture Of The Deep" is very inclined to Progressive rock, not to mention that anyway it's a great rock album... The opening track "Money Talks" is a very powerful song, with occasional arabic-like riffs here and there (a peculiarity to this album). This mood just goes on with the following two tracks "Girls Like That" and "Wrong Man", simply hard rock. The title track rush in with his arabic riff and his quite visionary lyrics, very good song...The 5th song on "Rapture of The Deep", "Clearly Quite Absurd", is a gem a very sad ballad featuring a very touching perfomance by Gillan and an interesting guitar work by Steve Morse. "Don't Let Go" and "Back To Back" are good numbers to show the feeling between band members, but sincerely they're nothing more than a filler, in fact they add almost nothing to the album. The musical level begin ro rise once again with "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye", not so prog but definitely a better number then the previous two, now for those who owns the european version MTV should kicks in: it's quite a complex song by the musical point of view, and it features very ironic and sarcastic lyrics against MTV, a radio station called Classic Rock Radio, and generally speaking against discographic industry. The two numbers which close "Rapture of the Deep" are progressive seen from DP point of view: the great "Junkyard Blues" and the superb "Before Time Began": the first one as the title suggests starts off being a very bluesy simple song, until the middle section begin and we listen to the instrumental section featuring brilliant Morse guitar licks and Airey keyboards: here DP reminds so much of Pink Floyd, and that visionary kind of music; same for the closing song absolutely progressive, visoinary, with prophetic great lyrics: such a great number, excellent track, probably the best in the album. It's an interesting album, for sure, with only a pair of weak moments, which can be included in your progressive collection without any problem.