And the Address, Whoosh!, Deep Purple 2020

This is the passage of time. Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore, two founding members of one of the greatest bands of all time - Deep Purple - laid the foundation for And the Address in December 1967. It then appeared the following year as the opening track on the album Shades of Deep Purple. Both musicians put into this composition attributes appropriate to the sixties, i.e. experimentation, rebelliousness and unorthodoxy, but at the same time it was clear to them that without order, system and adherence to certain rules, pure musical anarchy would not work. The resulting product was so good that the band subsequently played it at many live shows. Fifty-three years later, the same group, but without both writers/musicians (Jon Lord had died and Ritchie Blackmore had long since left the band), placed the instrumental And the Address at number twelve, the last position on their last full-length album to date, Whoosh!. It is, of course, a new version, with Steve Morse (in the band since 1995) playing the guitar part and Don Airey (in the band since 2001) playing the keyboard part. The difference between the two realisations is not small. The current version is much neater and sonically cleaner, which may seem like an advantage, but it's not as big as it might seem. The guitar solo on the new version is played with precision, refinement and has an audibly elaborate structure, whereas Blackmore's original take is more lively, less clear and arguably more improvised. This particular track encapsulates the whole story of the aforementioned British outfit's last album.Whoosh! contains fewer ideas than on earlier CDs and even some downright dull tracks (Nothing at All). A number of tracks show promise, but in the end they have no tempo, the necessary gradation or even a distinctive chorus (Dancing in my Sleep, We're All the Same in the Dark). Better songs include Throw my Bones - a well-chosen opener, Step by Step - an interesting arrangement and dark atmosphere, No Need to Shout - composition and sound, and The Long Way Round - elaborate solo parts and tempo. But the good riffing, quality keyboard soloing and pulsating rhythm section are nonetheless brought down by the vocal lines, which lack the earlier imaginative, juicy quality and also suffer from an overall lack of commitment and punch.

Finally, the best track is indeed the more than fifty-year-old And the Address, albeit in a new guise, which symbolically concludes the life journey of the phenomenal Deep Purple, whose work will undoubtedly forever belong to the golden fund of hard rock.