DEEP PURPLE

TURNING TO CRIME EarMusic 9/10

While Deep Purple is a massively iconic rock band, resting on their laurels is not for this lot. Following the success of Whoosh! last year, they’ve now taken to reimagining classic songs with their producer Bob Erin. And while they first started in the late 60s with covers, re-appropriating songs these days makes for very muscular results as Dylan’s Watching The River Flow and Louis Jordan’s Let The Good Times Roll both attest. Take for example Rockin Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Blues by Huey Smith; Don Airey provides sterling keyboards throughout and Steve Morse plays a wonderful bluesy country-rock solo (those bends are killer!). Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well marries the riffs and melodies of the original with sections that spotlight Steve who burns for the solo and then fronts a stunning classicalrock section later on. Reaching genius level, the closing Caught In The Act fuses elements of Going Down, Green Onions, Dazed And Confused and Gimme Some Lovin’. What this album shows is; the tracks are iconic, but this line-up is positively bionic! (JS)