Avtor: Peter Podbrežnik
Izvajalec: Deep Purple
Založba: EMI Records
Izid: 2003
Trajanje: 51:25
Ocena: 4.5/5
»Bananas« was yet another watershed album for the British hard rock legends Deep Purple, since it brought an enormously important lineup change and with it the birth of the so-called Mark VIII lineup, the one they still play in today. The legendary keyboardist and original member Jon Lord (1941-2012), without whom the traditional Deep Purple sound was unimaginable, since his innovative Hammond organ wizardry was one of the key ingredients on the road to their worldwide fame, decided with a heavy heart to retire from life as an active rock musician after a knee injury that took quite a while to recover from, and to devote himself to classical-orchestral projects, which he stayed faithful to until the end of his life. The remaining four members had to think long and hard before deciding to carry on with a new keyboardist. Lord’s departure was a heavy blow in every respect for a legendary band that, despite more or less decent studio releases since the reunion in 1984, had marched into the dawn of the new century riding on past glory.
The cult bassist and producer Roger Glover, who after Lord’s departure, thanks to his calm and diplomatic nature, had become a sort of unofficial spokesman for the band when it came to dealing with the media, knew there was only one keyboardist capable of decently replacing the hugely popular organ grandmaster. The logical choice was the classically trained keyboardist Don Airey, Glover’s old buddy from the days of the legendary band Rainbow (between 1979 and 1981, to be exact). Besides Rainbow, Airey has over his rich career worked with (sometimes as a regular member, sometimes just as a session player) such musical greats as Colosseum II, Black Sabbath, Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Jethro Tull and, more recently, Wishbone Ash. Just like with nearly every lineup change in the long and turbulent Deep Purple saga, Airey taking over Lord’s Hammond organs had an enormously beneficial effect on the artistic refreshment of a band that had gone a bit stale in the songwriting and ideas department, and that, with the solid but, by usual Purple standards, slightly-too-average album »Abandon (1998), had shown that their best days were long behind them.
Deep Purple needed nearly five years to put together the wittily titled »Bananas,« as they were chronically short of fresh songwriting ideas, and Lord’s exit caught them practically completely unprepared. Still, the lineup shake-up blew in a fresh wind. During the creative process behind this excellent album, which sports an original, wonderful cover showing two banana pickers from the ‘third world,’ Airey was in top form, and with his keyboard antics he thoroughly got the blood pumping through Deep Purple’s lifeless nervous system. »Bananas« carries on the decades-old Deep Purple hard rock philosophy and grafts onto it a string of very pleasant, refreshing surprises, exactly the kind the ‘heavy metal grandpas’ desperately needed to prove they weren’t ready for the scrap heap yet.
The charismatic singing jokester Ian Gillan, who has kept his vocal form in good shape even though he can no longer hit those dizzyingly high notes, showed a touch more dynamism than usual in the lyrics this time. Besides the traditional woes about femmes fatales and the usual humorous clichés, there’s no shortage of some social commentary either, which can be heard mainly on the title track. The cult American virtuoso Steve Morse, who has by now managed to earn the respect of many longtime fans who still couldn’t come to terms with the departure of his predecessor Ritchie Blackmore, shines throughout the album with a showcase of innovative guitar phrases and bold improvisations. Ian Paice, who after Lord’s departure remained the last original Deep Purple member, is as ruthless as ever in taming his drum kit and an ideal partner for Glover’s traditional melodic bass lines.
The punchy opening bomb »House Of Pain,« which hides a pinch of blues in its middle and whose main purpose is to heat the album’s atmosphere up to boiling point as fast as possible, immediately serves up clear proof that the listener is dealing with a revitalized Deep Purple. Gillan’s mischievously tinged singing is joined by cheerful, dynamic backing vocals that deepen the playful atmosphere laid over funky rhythms. Morse impresses with a serving of rough-edged guitar phrases and a short improvisation joined by a in-top-form Airey. The end result is one of the most inspired Deep Purple openers since the 1984 reunion.
The next hard rock standard, »Sun Goes Down,« is a far more dramatic creation, with schizophrenic-sounding guitar phrases and highly dynamic layers of organ, while Gillan theatrically builds up the slightly anxious atmosphere. Amid the dramatic harmonies, Airey treats himself to a monumental Hammond solo, signaling that he’ll try to carry on the magnificent keyboard legacy of his legendary predecessor as faithfully as possible. One of the nicest surprises on the whole album hides in the record’s first single, »Haunted,« a gorgeous love ballad in which guest singer Beth Hart joins Gillan on vocal harmonies, while Paul Buckmaster leads the way in helping Airey build hypnotic orchestral arrangements. The uplifting atmosphere of one of the finest ballads in the Deep Purple story, which can comfortably sit alongside classics like »When A Blind Man Cries« and »Soldier Of Fortune,« gets deeper still with Morse’s melancholic guitar solo, while the male-female vocal harmonies are a real balm for the ears.
Compared with its contemplative predecessor, »Razzle Dazzle« is a distinctly boisterous number with boogie rhythmic shades and a cheeky, laddish lyric in which Gillan once again turns into a rowdy good-timer. Barroom piano arrangements weave elegantly through resolute guitar passages, while the drum fills are timed as smartly as can be. »Silver Tongue,« where the heated atmosphere slowly builds in step with a pompous chorus, is an attempt to revive the hard-rocking Purple magic of the early seventies, but with modernist songwriting and production touches. The short but complex instrumental section in the middle features Morse’s and Airey’s voluptuous improvisations. Gillan, with his characteristic vocal mannerisms, takes care of the good mood and the optimistic message as usual.
»Walk On,« a typical Purple classic on which guest guitarist Michael Bradford joined Morse and played the main solo, contains a string of interesting mood shifts and a few unexpected tempo changes. Bradford, incidentally, proved himself an excellent producer on »Bananas« too. Over the years Gillan has admittedly lost some of his former technical breadth when it comes to vocal range, but this track makes it plain to hear that he’s still an excellent interpreter. The song’s atmosphere and rhythmic pulse are a bit laid-back this time, thanks to Morse’s bluesy passages and Airey’s subdued organ maneuvers, yet they nicely preserve the dynamic nature of an album where calm and punchy moments alternate harmoniously, right on cue. Airey’s closing synthesizer improvisation, which also throws in a few unusual digital samples, makes for a highly interesting finish. »Picture Of Innocence,« the next classic on the album, where tradition and innovation meet, opens as a fairly basic blues rocker with a boozy-sounding Gillan vocal and funky rhythmic support, until a punchy guitar passage, thickened layers of Hammond organ and a more aggressive vocal approach send it sailing into properly hard rock waters. There’s no shortage of the epic guitar-versus-organ duel either, a staple of the recognizable Deep Purple sound for decades.
»I Got Your Number,« a witty melodic rocker with plenty of dynamic rhythmic shades, catches Gillan in the middle of his third adolescence, with shimmering layers of organ and sharpened guitar passages keeping him company in the background. The vocal harmonies in the chorus are, as they should be, superb, while the level of virtuosity between Morse and Airey impresses once more, especially after the calm middle section wraps up. Then comes another improvisational duel, sparks flying, which slickly paves the way for the hyper-melodic chorus. The Celtic-flavored guitar ending serves as the cherry on top of this excellent achievement. »Never A Word« is a pleasant folk-rock-tinged ballad with lovely orchestral arrangements and a pastoral acoustic guitar melody, which in atmosphere slightly recalls some of Purple’s past experiments with Morse in the lineup. The instrumental section of over two minutes in the closing part finally makes room for Gillan’s psychedelic-tinged vocal, this time accompanied by ethereal vocal harmonies. Lyrical naivety aside, it’s another interesting, praiseworthy experiment.
The title track is an energetic number with no shortage of ruffled guitar passages and a rowdy organ sound, while Paice, against dynamic keyboard textures, uncompromisingly unleashes fiery drum barrages. In the second half comes Airey’s ‘starry’ moment, when with a monumental organ solo he recalls, less of Lord than of Keith Emerson (ELP, ex-The Nice), in his approach to working the keys and his protective turns of phrase. Morse tries to tangle with him in a soloing duel with a guitar improvisation, but this time Airey completely overshadows him with his organ masterpiece.
»Doing It Tonight« is another rhythmically lively number with a slight funky pulse, on which mostly Morse stretches his fast fingers with a mischievous solo, while Airey on keys doesn’t lag behind in the slightest. Gillan experiments with different vocal approaches again, but this time he plays ‘second fiddle’ to the virtuoso feats of his bandmates. The short, melancholic closing bonbon »Contact Lost« is an inconsolable Morse guitar solo that closes out one of the best albums by the legendary hard rock collective since their resurrection in the mid-eighties in a very fitting way.
Zasedba
Ian Gillan – vokal
Steve Morse – kitara
Roger Glover – bas kitara
Don Airey – orgle, klaviature
Ian Paice – bobni
Produkcija
Michael Bradford
Seznam skladb
1. House Of Pain (3:34)
2. Sun Goes Down (4:10)
3. Haunted (4:22)
4. Razzle Dazzle (3:28)
5. Silver Tongue (4:03)
6. Walk On (7:04)
7. Picture Of Innocence (5:11)
8. I Got Your Number (6:01)
9. Never A Word (3:46)
10. Bananas (4:51)
11. Doing It Tonight (3:28)
12. Contact Lost (1:27)
