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Don Airey – All Out
While the fans are still hoping and waiting for a new DEEP PURPLE studio album, most of the current band members release solo stuff or team up with other musicians for album projects: Ian Gillan joined forces with Tony Iommi to record two songs under the “Who Cares”-banner, Steve Morse teamed up with singer/songwriter Sarah Spencer to form “Angelfire” and Roger Glover revivied the Guilty Party to release “If Life Was Easy”.
Don Airey, not only playing on several third party albums also finished “All Out”, his second solo release since the latest PURPLE output “Rapture of the Deep”.
While “A Light In The Sky” used travelling through space and time as theme, “All Out” does the travel music-wise. The songs capture the mood, sounds and feelings of different points in time – the instrumental “Estancia” reminds of a modernized Emerson, Lake and Palmer while the inclusion of Bernie Marsden on “Running From The Shadows” brings some WHITESNAKE memories. “People In Your Head” offers another special guest – this time it’s Joe Bonamassa (trying to break Dons “albums I played on” record) who adds a BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION feel to the song. Two songs however fail to convince: the first is the Jimmy Hendrix cover “Fire” where the organ just doesn’t fit the overall picture while “Tobruk” gets lost somewhere within its ten minutes.
With most songs sounding different than their neightbours, “All Out” offers a lot to discover but also leaves a feeling of being “just a bunch of songs” instead of something more monolithic. A good rock album – nothing less and nothing more.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Don Airey has been there, done that. His repertoire of involvement throughout the years with such stellar performers is amazing. Unfortunately, it also places a bit ambiguity in his own status. He hasn’t been one to stand out and do His thing very often. His place in most of his prior endeavors was more as a support or session player than an actual acknowledged full-fledged member of a band. Now with Purple, he is much more Spotlighted and is finally receiving recognition for the talent that he truly is. Being The ONE selected to take over the place vacated by Jon Lord says it all. It has inspired him to take a more up front roll with his craft and I for one am thrilled to see it happen. That is one of the good things about being involved in Deep Purple. This band is known for its outstanding musicianship and once you have been knighted into the realm; your personal influence is then expanded out even further as a solo artist. That is a good thing for us Purple Fans too. Maybe there are too few actual Deep Purple albums over the last 10 years, but we have been blessed with many enjoyable Purple related offerings from All in the band.
I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing ‘All Out’ yet, but I do look forward to it and am sure there are some great tunes here.
Cheers
October 3rd, 2011 at 15:59probably his best solo album?
October 6th, 2011 at 12:33I tried to go to Don’s web site to read more about his new album, but the web site seems to be down (?). Anybody know anything about this?
October 6th, 2011 at 21:56Yeah, Go Don ! Show us why you were selected to take over from God (Jon Lord) Have enjoyed your keyboard excelence for a while now ! Thank you .
March 16th, 2013 at 00:59