Deep Purple, Bananas

Deep Purple, Bananas - This album's very disappointing. Time to call it a day guys before travelling over the hill & reaching Status Quoville.

We're arguably talking about one of the earliest incarnations of prog-rock & they sound awful! For some reason, Gillan now sounds like an over-produced Tom Jones impressionist with a badly faked American accent. Seriously, it's going that 50`s jazz root that for some reason, artists tend to deviate toward when reaching a certain age (e.g. Rod Stewart, Robert Plant). It's a combo of over-produced elevator music combined with clich so-so, few guitar solos or heavy riffs in sight (or rather, sound). The only tracks remotely familiar are the bluesy Silver Tongue & Walk On songs. Even they sound like mellow `ZZ Top cover band fodder`. If you're considering the nature of the Rock album industry, it's pretty cut-throat & you'll understand this harsh opinion. The whole thing's as rebellious as a wet fish. If the fans wanted easy listening, they'd go John Denver or Clapton, that simple. The raw, rocky, experimental Purple are gone, they're a dead, watered down parody with zimmer frames. The lyrics are the usual forgetful duff blues variations, at one point Gillan sings about "pulling crackers off a shelf" supposedly for the purpose of rhyme?

Slayer's Jeff Hanneman once described this group as having gone downhill after Fireball. I say this group may have just about surpassed their notorious rep for being unpopular with this very album. This work's definitely flat, bargain bucket leftover. C'mon, even the Stones are producing more original material these days.