 |  | Deep Purple chooses fun over heavy |  |
While not as heavy or rockin' as "Perfect Strangers" or "The Battle Rages On", this album is still a pretty good Deep Purple one. The 80's run of the band sounds different from the early 70's days (in keeping with the times), but it's good in its own way. Although this album seems to be their foray into more of a Van Halenesque pop direction, it's still got some nice guitar riffage and energy, and Gillan's lyrics and vocals work well with a sense of fun and tongue-in-cheek. Even if it's Deep Purple "lite", it's a good one - there's not a song on it I don't like, and I'll still take it over any 80's American hair metal anyday.
May 10, 2008Is the band dead or alive, well, with this second "reunion" album, they proved that they still rock ! House of blue light is in the shadow of its predecessor "Perfect Strangers", it is a lesser known album but in my humble, it is just as good or even better than Perfect Strangers.
I just like every songs on it, a pleasure to listen to from the beginning till' the end. If you like Perfect Strangers, there is no reason for you to be afraid of trying this one, you'll like it too.
January 9, 2008| | | A follow up to a classic...not bad. | |
No question, "Perfect Strangers" is a Deep Purple classic. "The House of Blue Light" was the follow up. Not all the songs are classic Purple, or even in the vein of "Perfect Strangers," but as a whole the album is pretty solid. For me, Bad Attitude, Strangeways, Mitzie Dupree, and Dead or Alive are the highlights of this album. Gillan's vocal work is, for the most part, excellent, especially on Mitzie Dupree. The Unwritten Law could have been a good song if the vocals weren't incredibly...stupid, for lack of a better word. The tensions between Gillan and Blackmore resulted in some pretty darn good guitar playing from Ritchie (Dead or Alive) and vocals from Ian trying to bridge the gap ("...why don't we call it a day before we call it a nightmare, darlin'?") or lashing out ("...you think I'm chained up, but I'm just tied down"). Overall, "The House of Blue Light" is a consistent, if sometimes unspectacular, album.
June 11, 2007 Great title but where is the blues ??? no likee....
May 12, 2007 | | This isn't your father's Deep Purple | |
I my humble opinion this was the best of the reunited Deep Purple. Perfect Strangers was a great album but the music was cut from the same cloth that much of the early Deep Purple and Rainbow for that matter. The thing that was great about the original Mark II two lineup was that from "In Rock" to "Fireball" to "Machine Head" to "Who Do We Think We Are" the sound and music on each of the albums was very different. There was growth and adventure in the development of each album. The House of Blue Light returned to an attempt to be creative. Granted these won't be the songs that will talk about forever or hardly at all twenty years later but they are great in their own rights. Songs like "The Spanish Archer", "Hard Lovin' Woman", "Strangeways", "The Unwritten Law", and "Dead or Alive" show a real stepping outside of the box with the style of the band. It was unfortunate that this album and tour were marred by the fighting within the band however as has always been the case with the band, the music is seemingly at it's best when there is tension from within. I have heard the album termed as an "experimental" album and I would have to agree and say that this was a successful experiment.
March 15, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
(43 reviews)