The House of Blue Light

Note: I have based this review on the CD remaster of this album, which has slightly shorter track lengths than the original release.

Sometimes, an album just grabs you. You don't really know why-- if you try to analyse it, it doesn't seem like it should be that great. Yet despite this there's just something that appeals to you on some fundamental level. Other times, the opposite holds: an album ticks all the boxes, there's nothing all that wrong with it, and yet you just can't quite bring yourself to truly enjoy it. For me, The House of Blue Light is definitely an example of the latter. This, technically Deep Purple's twelfth studio album, is really only the sixth from the Mark II lineup of Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord, and Paice: the same line-up who brought us timeless classics like In Rock, Machine Head, and the underrated Fireball. This fact is, in many ways, the primary cause of my dissatisfaction with the release.

On the surface of it, there's really nothing wrong here. The album has a strongly eighties sound and it's kind of cheesy at times, but these pretty much go with the territory. There's nothing wrong with the production, and the songs are reasonably catchy and pleasant-sounding. All of the members of the band are very talented and they all pull their weight. The problem is, all of this contributes to a very safe and thus mundane sound. The band sounds like a group of (very competent) musicians going through the motions, painting by numbers. Nobody seems to be willing to paint outside the lines, though, to put themselves out there and take a risk. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in a general sense, but this is Deep Purple!

To me, Deep Purple is a band who are at their best when they really cut loose. Classic tracks like Child in Time, with its insanely over-the-top vocal and solos, the intense speed metal assault of tracks like Fireball and Speed King, and the bludgeoning riffing and high energy of Space Truckin'-- these are all the creations of band who didn't know how much was too much, and frankly didn't give a shit. There's an unreserved, unrestrained, joyous energy to the first three Mk II albums. They're exciting, they're dramatic, and although the band made their fair share of mistakes, they're far outweighed by all the incredible material on offer. Unfortunately, the lineup's next effort was the far less inspired Who Do We Think We Are?, which is far less exuberant. Whether it was due to the oft-mentioned internal tensions experienced by the band at the time, or simply because of a lack of good ideas, we were presented with an album that just didn't quite cut the mustard, despite some containing some very cool tracks. It was safe, and restrained, and hence not nearly as thrilling as the previous material. As a result, 1984's reunion album Perfect Strangers was a breath of fresh air. Although more reserved than the 70's albums, the reformed line-up seemed to have recovered a great deal of their passion and enthusiasm, and pumped out another excellent addition to their catalogue. Which leads us to the next pre-breakup album, The House of Blue Light, a relatively timid and safe hard rocker.

Despite its relative lack of impact compared to their older material, let's be clear-- this is still decent. It's very much within the bounds of hard rock, but with a rather light and poppy feel for the most part. An interesting characteristic of the album is that there's no filler at all-- in fact, every single song sounds like it was intended to be a single. This manifests in catchy, sing-along choruses, as well as a fairly consistent lean towards your typical verse-chorus radio rock structuring. In short, it's unchallenging, but it's actually a great deal of fun. The thing is, the band themselves don't seem to have been having an awful lot of fun playing it. Where are the dramatic and ear-splitting wails? Gillan has an incredible set of pipes, but if this release was the only Purple I'd heard I might not realise it. It makes it fairly easy to sing along with, but also less interesting to listen to! Where are the over-the-top guitar solos? There are a few nice enough ones here and there, but nothing that's going to make the kids want to pick up a guitar and attempt to impress girls. The rest of the band similarly fail to shine. It doesn't really feel like they are a rock band, jamming and improvising and just generally doing whatever the hell they want. It feels more like a group of session musicians, playing the sheet music as written. It's technically very good, but there's no emotional involvement, no passion.

The other big problem with the album is that most of the songs, although they don't actually sound the same, don't really manage to differentiate themselves. They're all fine at the time when you listen to them, but when the album stops spinning there's nothing that you will find yourself humming to yourself until you next spin it, nothing that really makes you sit up and say "wow". That said, there are a couple of tracks that do make themselves known. Mitzi Dupree is probably the most notable-- I'm not actually a huge fan of it myself, but its oddly slinky, bluesy riffs and humorous/sleazy lyrics make it arguably the most memorable thing on here. Another more interesting track is Hard Lovin' Woman, which isn't a patch on its masculine counterpart from In Rock, but still manages to work rather well with its relatively high tempo and some unexpected horn sounds and a really cool riff at the start. There are also less memorable songs which contain great moments-- for instance, the synth/guitar solo exchange on Dead or Alive is very cool, as is the chorus of Black and White, which really reminds me of Queen. However, none of these highlights would be particularly good if they were placed on an album of the calibre of In Rock or Machine Head-- they are only exciting relative to the fairly homogenous morass that is The House of Blue Light. They just don't have the riffs or the vocal lines to really stand up to the band's back catalogue. They never really build up enough momentum to make the listener sit up from their torpor and pay attention-- Mad Dog does threaten to do this a few times, but it's really only teasing, and seems to slump back into mediocrity after each attempt.

This is an album that could have been quite good, but ultimately fails due to an utter lack of effort at doing anything truly exciting. I would probably be more forgiving if it was another band, but as I know that the Deep Purple Mk II line-up is capable of so much more, the release feels almost castrated, and is ultimately quite disappointing. It's too safe, too moderate, too uninspired, and it tries too hard to fit into the template of what was popular at the time to let the band really show off what they can do. It's a fun little hard rocker, but that's all it is.