The House of Blue Light

Three reviewers, some of them very respected ones in the MA's community, already explained the gorgeousness of Perfect Strangers, as well as I did it with my own review of that album in a short way. Now, for the sake of the things, happens that after such a crusher comeback with lots of moneymaking and several praise for the "return of the metal gods" and stuff we must remark once more the failure committed with The House of Blue Light.

We don't know what's up with Deep Purple, sometimes. I mean, ¿don't they have enough money in their accounts for dropping out AOR please-buy-me-we-are-kinda-sold-outs albums like this one? Because, well, when we compare this with the primary bad album of the band, Who do We Think We Are, there are lots of similarities with a subtle difference. They are like the same in terms of the objective pursued. Money making, easy money making without efforting. That's why, nowadays, WDWTWA gets totally bashed in between the majestic early metal trio of albums before that one and, later, the release of Made in Japan and Burn. That album, simply, does not belong.

Same happens here. After the brilliant traditional metal comeback with Perfect Strangers, THOBL is a total wreck in terms of musical greatness. When we talk about sales, this probably got lots of attention from AOR audiences and made enough money to make the things ongoing. Nice charting in North America, great charting in Europe and Asia and stuff. But nothing more. And that's it. This release is a historical evidence that such a tremendous band like Deep Purple can do wrong, and do it almost twice.

Why am I saying "almost twice" and not simply "twice"? Because in "Who do We Think We Are" they have done moneymaking but, somehow, within the limits of integrity, trying to do American Friendly Rock with some touches of "heaviness" in it, and not so desperately trying to suck the tit but with some blood in the face to look themselves good enough to do mediocre albums at least once. But "The House of Blue Light" is not a mediocre, but a BAD album in terms of hard rock and traditional metal.

The production is superb, the musicianship, mind you, is great as well. The things that are wrong here are the songs and nothing more, nothing less. In the previous album, there were three "hit" songs: Knocking at your Back Door, Nobody's Home and Perfect Strangers. In those ones, the power of DP's commercial hard rock can be felt, you can taste the goods, the masterful singing by Gillan, the unique game of bass/drumming shred by Glover and Paice and, of course, Jon Lord providing delicious and guitaresque licks of his keyboards, well followed by the String Sorcerer, Ritchie Blackmore, mostly in the rythmic zone. Compare this with the singles in "The House of Blue Light", Call of the Wild and Bad Attitude and you will easily understand what I'm talking about.

And let's not even enter in deep analysis of the rest of both records. In Perfect Strangers, Blackmore shreds almost everywhere, followed by Lord. Gillan sings as a metal performer, Glover and Paice beat away the irons. In The House of Blue Light, well, this is around 70 percent lower, with the attempt of doing it extremely easy to digest for non-metal ears. The result is terrible, weak, unworthy of Deep Purple's majestic legacy.

The songs here are boring, gutless, without emotion. The Spanish Archer would be the most aggressive one, with Bad Attitude, and well, you know, gets short, falls weak into a deep hollow in comparison with other masterpieces by the band. In this record, almost nothing is good enough to take, for example, and mix is alongside the millions of compilations or the powerful live albums made by the band. I mean, seriously, "take a look to these dirty hands" and you will figure out. Nowhere is the magic, nowhere is the evergreen riff, nowhere is the brainmelter solo. It's hollow, it's light, as the title says.

So, in case you can find this album lingering around, bypass it. Only if you already have the other ones, go ahead and buy it, just for the sake of collectionists.