After now what seems to be his permanent departure from
Deep Purple in the mid-nineties and the ever so inevitable end to more and more
Rainbow lineups, Ritchie Blackmore, along with "common law" wife
Candice Night (how lucky he is), decided to distance himself from the guitar crunch and the shred messiah aura that he literally helped invent and became, creating baroque folk music, obviously a far cry from his era with
Deep Purple and
Rainbow, and more fitting for a renaissance related mood
Trading in the Stratocaster and Marshall at times for Acoustics, Lutes, and Mandolins since the release of 1997's
Shadow of the Moon, causing many heads to be turned in the guitar aficionado community, some like it and some might have disliked it, but regardless, you cant deny that what Blackmore has done in the past several years on his own.
With
Ghost of a Rose being the fifth release (including a live album) from the Blackmore's Night, Blackmore himself still adds his nimble fingered techniques to whatever strings he can find, while Night's voice haunts and commands as equal attention as Blackmore's guitar work, and that is saying a lot.
Equally mixing the baroque style cuts with more intricate mood base cuts, where some include the occasional heavy guitar crunch to add an edge to the enchantment. Between the diverse mix of stringed instruments, percussion, hurdy gurdys, tin whistles/flutes, violins, and occasional synthesizers, each cut on this record has it's own identity within the scope of styling; take for instance moody cuts like
"Way to Mandalay," "Ivory Tower," "Rainbow Blues," and the cover of the Joan Baez cut,
"Diamonds and Rust" (made famous to metalheads by Judas Priest, who also covered this song), that keep the record on ore of it's more straightforward rock vibe.
But within the record there are several neo-classically minstrel dance paced cuts, if you must, such as
"Cartouche," "Loreley," and
"Dandelion Wine," with all the early European musical influence. Blackmore himself stands out on instrumentals such as
"Nur Eine Minute," the second half of
"Queen for a Day," and
"Mr. Pegram's Morris and Sword," where Blackmore bring his signature classical styling with extreme aggression to the utmost of a stripped down performance that is completely flawless, one can only imagine what it would sound like if he plugged in. One cut that particularly stands out is the powerful title cut, with it's dark mood driven pace and symphonicly challenged backbone, will have the many symphonic metal aficionados scratching their heads, making for yet another excellent turn for both Blackmore and Night to venture further into their own creative territories, regardless of what direction they are heading in.
On a VH1's
Where Are They Now special that aired several years ago, the ever so cynical Blackmore stated that his music would be best to be performed in front of friends in a pub in Hungary or elsewhere in Eastern Europe, with everybody sitting around having a good time drinking and so forth. Sounds good like a good idea to me.
Written by
Hashman Friday, March 5, 2004
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