Infinite

First and foremost, it's absolutely insane that Gillan & co. can still pump out tight songs this far into their career, and at their age, without just flat out running out of ideas. Not that old bands can't write good music, I mean just look at Judas Priest's Firepower. The difference is, though, that Deep Purple haven't really surfaced an album that was greatly talked about in decades. I enjoy it all, but seldom do you find many people who dig anything after the late '80s. Infinite is hardly a metal album, but a bluesy and jazz influenced rock and roll album for sure.

While there aren't really any tracks that jump out and grab you, every song still has a magical vibe that makes you want to move to it. Don Airey floods this entire record with catchy keyboard licks that can definitely hold up to Jon Lord's abilities. But what's really important here is the fact that the songwriting is still there. There's vocal harmony and plenty of rhythmic guitar melody to keep the flame alive. I'll admit, there's a pretty gross amount of auto-tune here, but rather making up for poor vocal delivery (because it doesn't need to), it just aims to crystallize the production, which I can't say I'm a fan of. If they would can that, I can assure that the production would be better off. There is a little bit of variety here; with some tracks aiming for a radio-rock approach such as "All I Got Is You", while others like "The Surprising" try to throwback a little more and appeal to the longtime fans that crave a bit more musical depth.

When it's all said and done, there isn't much more I can say about this, because not much else really jumps out. Should Purple make more records after this? I always embrace bands to keep on going no matter what, but I would be fine with this being the last one. Nothing they do is flat out terrible. Seeing that I got this when it came out a year ago, my opinion hasn't changed, and it didn't have a "new album" shock to it. This certainly isn't anything to praise, but for sure worth picking up, or at least the 45 minutes of your time.