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Deep Purple - Abandon CD (album) cover

ABANDON

Deep Purple

 

Proto-Prog

2.84 | 330 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
2 stars Don't make me happy more often please

The mark 7 line up was rapidly becoming the most stable, and undoubtedly the happiest, of all the versions of Deep Purple. In 1997, they returned to the studio in Florida to record this the their second album. Once again, the song-writing credits are democratically distributed, all the songs being written by "Deep Purple" with the exception of the closing reworking of "Bloodsucker" (subtly renamed "Bludsucker") which is credited all five members of the mark 2 band. The album is self produced by "Deep Purple", although interestingly Roger Glover receives his own additional name check for these duties.

The opening "Any fule know that" is a rather ordinary funky number with the Aerosmith style semi-rapped vocals which have become a feature of at least one track on recent albums. The song is certainly no match for some of the wonderful introductory songs which have adorned previous albums.

"Don't make me happy" is actually the first track here to do just that. The song is a bluesy number whose lighter backing is exploited by Ian Gillan. The louder choruses are followed by some fine organ backed lead guitar.

"Seventh heaven" and the following "Watching the sky" see the band putting slightly more effort into the arrangements, but overall the songs feel underdeveloped in terms of both song writing and performance. While it might be wishful thinking to look for another "Child in time", there is nothing here to match even the likes of "Sometimes I feel like screaming" from the previous album. "Fingers to the bone" probably comes closes to the latter song, being a surprisingly reflective, mainly acoustic number.

There is some frankly poor material here, "She was" being an uncharacteristically messy and unfocused number, and "Whatsername" being unworthy of any Deep Purple album. Thankfully, such dips are still rare and while the album as a whole is far from a classic, it is an adequate Deep Purple release.

Although Steve Morse adds regular guitar interludes throughout the album, these are less obvious than on the previous "Purpendicular", where the band appeared to have a point to prove. Likewise, it seems that an extra effort was made on "Purpendicular" to come up with some really strong material, "Abandon" having a more run of the mill feel overall.

The main significance of this album in terms of the band's history is that it marks the swansong of founding member Jon Lord.

Easy Livin | 2/5 |

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