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Deep Purple - Slaves And Masters review



Reviewer:
6.2

167 users:
6.75
Band: Deep Purple
Album: Slaves And Masters
Release date: 1990


01. King Of Dreams
02. The Cut Runs Deep
03. Fire In The Basement
04. Truth Hurts
05. Breakfast In Bed
06. Love Conquers All
07. Fortuneteller
08. Too Much Is Not Enough
09. Wicked Ways

Everyone agrees that Deep Purple is one of founders of hard-rock and one of the bands that made a name for themselves in the most wonderful era of music, the 70's. At the time, 1990, Deep Purple already were an icon lead by the guitar genius Ritchie Blackmore. Slaves And Masters was the only album with Joe Lynn Turner, and definitely one of the most controversial and criticized albums of all time in the history of Deep Purple. This formation is known as Mark V, one of the many changes in the band's formation.

Slaves And Masters is from far my least favourite album of Deep Purple, it's clearly a "rip-off", copy cat of the partnership between Ritchie and Joe in one of the greatest bands in rock Rainbow. Rainbow's albums with Joe, although being the worst albums the band composed are still good rock albums and capable of being in the collection of any rock fan. Well Slaves And Masters is that... but with less quality in every way. Technically the band stands together and makes a good performance but this album doesn't contain any of the elements that made Deep Purple famous throughout the world. I think that, if the fans complain about this album, they complain not of the performance of the members of the band but of the concept of the album. Most tracks are about love with a mix of Whitesnake and 80's Rainbow, the only songs that are actually hard-rock oriented are "Breakfast In Bed", "Fire In The Basement", and "Wicked Ways" which are the best on the album.

Lyrically the album is okay; Ritchie, Joe, Roger and the others are great songwriters and they kept their usual performance in this area. Like I said above, technically the performance was solid, the album has good riffs and sometimes good solos not something amazing from someone that is one of the best guitar players of all time but still decent. The best thing on the album is the production that I truly like. I really admire the talent of Roger Glover not only for bass but also for production, definitely he is one of the greatest artists in the music industry.

All in all, what puts this album in the bottom of the band's discography is the concept, the fact that they composed something that was so usual to hear in the 80's. They didn't try anything special. Nowadays, none of the songs in this album are in the setlist of the band for live shows. It's definitely a consequence of the failure this album was, even the band knows the level this album is at compared with other classics. Slaves And Masters is not a a complete disaster, don't take me wrong, but it's definitely the worst album the band ever made. Although, it had a relatively successful tour in 1991 it was way too melodic for the hard-rock fans of Deep Purple.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 5
Production: 8

Written by AndMetalForAll | 11.01.2012




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.


Comments

Comments: 6   Visited by: 60 users
11.01.2012 - 14:17
Mountain King
K i K o
Well i like King Of Dreams...
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11.01.2012 - 21:11
Milena
gloom cookie
I love reviews for classic albums!
"Rainbow's albums with Joe, although being the worst albums the band composed are still good rock albums and capable of being in the collection of any rock fan."
Rainbow's worst is everyone else's pretty good, I must say.
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7.0 means the album is good
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11.01.2012 - 21:24
Nergal Is God
Account deleted
I agree with the review, not a very good album. Having been raised on the classic DP albums, this one is definitely a disappointment. Although, I disagree on the bit about Rainbow. I feel the albums with Joe Lynn Turner are far better than the album with Graham Bonnett. I don't know what Ritchie was thinking when he brought in Graham, but that was a major let down after Ronnie's departure. When Joe came in, yeah the music was very commercial, I feel it still had a bit more edge than Graham's album.
Also, for their time, I think Deep Purple was more metal than Hard Rock. Hear me out on this; Yes, it is true that Black Sabbath brought the evil and gloom in with their riffs and and lyrics and such. However, if you look at what Deep Purple was doing with In Rock, Fireball, and Machine Head, they were just as heavy, musically, and they also brought in a few other aspects that the majority of metal bands do today. Deep Purple brought the extremely technical musicianship (let's face it, the guys in Deep Purple had a bit more to give with their chops then the guys in Sabbath. No offense to Sabbath, they're great musicians as well). Deep Purple also introduced the Organ/Keyboards into Heavy Metal. And, as far as I'm concerned, Ian Gillan was the first "screamer" in Heavy Metal. He was the first to do those high pitched Falsetto screams such as on "Child in Time".
Great review though, totally agree with you about the album.
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12.01.2012 - 01:59
JohnDoe
Account deleted
My least favourite Deep Purple album, but not a bad album at all.
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13.01.2012 - 16:37
Rating: 7
Nardor

Good review! Certainly the worst DP album.
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27.04.2013 - 14:25
Rating: 6
AndMetalForAll
kual21
Deep Purple Live in Budapest 1991 - Slaves and Masters Tour

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greets,
kual21
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