DEEP PURPLE - Whoosh!

Released August 7, 2020

Even their biggest fans have to be surprised at just how good Deep Purple continues to be in 2021. One hopes that by this late stage in their career the individual members of the band are financially secure. Even so, they could have saved a few pennies by leaving Bob Ezrin off the ledger. He is credited as producer on their surprisingly strong new album Whoosh!, but I don't hear a single thing on it that they could not have done without him. Those who have not taken the band seriously since Ritchie Blackmore's departure do so at their own peril. The freakishly virtuosic Steve Morse, one of the very few guitarists who was ever in the same league as Blackmore, has now been in the band for over 25 years. It's long past time to stop thinking of him as the new boy. Even Don Airey has been on the keys for two decades since Jon Lord passed. We live in a world that routinely ignores excellent new studio albums from the likes of ZZ Top and Cheap Trick. Classic Rock Radio looks only to the past and nothing in the mainstream media even acknowledges groups of that era that are still doing incredible work. Granted, Deep Purple is breaking no new ground here. But I'm not sure that's what anyone in their right mind would expect of them at this stage. Forefathers of heavy metal and hard rock, they created a template and set the standard insanely high over half a century ago. They continue to challenge themselves and come up smelling like roses with remarkably solid albums that barely register a blip. While the Stones for example haven't made a record truly worthy of their brand since 1994 and the whole world thinks of them as gods. Take it from me, for whatever it's worth, if you ever had a Deep Purple album in your collection this one is certainly worth checking out. Bottom line: I find it almost impossible to rate any album with Ian Paice on drums lower than a B-minus.

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“With a peak position of number 4, this was the band's highest-charting studio album in the U.K. for 46 years.” ~ Wikipedia