Blackmore's Night - Under a Violet Moon
|
Our Price: $37.79 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $11.98 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Under a Violet Moon
Free Music Review: I Hate To Admit It...
Hit: 3 Stars
but the cheese factor here is seriously high. This is the perfect music for a gaggle of aging hippies and their wannabe progeny to dance to at a morning Moonrise. Unlike other reviewers, I'm NOT impressed with the musicianship on this album. Now that Blackmore's found his soulmate, his music's turned giddy and touchy-feelie and happy and it's completely lost its creative forcefulness - the Billy Joel syndrome (anyone remember "Uptown Girl"?) Gone are the tour de force of Lazy and Child In Time and Black Night, and it has nothing to do with Heavy Metal vs. Modern Renaissance. When Blackmore was with DP, and even with Rainbow, he came up with music no one had heard before. He created a style anyone could identify after 10 notes, and inspired countless guitarists because of his creative brilliance. Now is the fall of that great guitar inspiration. The solos on Violet Moon are uncreative, pure and simple. Any gifted high school kid could write them. And while Candice has a beautiful voice, she's just another instrument for Blackmore to orchestrate. Regardless of how well she hits a note or sustains a melody, a mediocre Blackmore can only result in a mediocre Candice. And really, the lyrics - - cheese.
Violet Moon will appeal to a small niche audience. If you enjoy true Renaissance music, there are countless ensembles that do it far better. If you're a fan of Blackmore and want to hear the legend push the envelope in stirring new directions, stop and listen to the old stuff before you're sorely disappointed. This is no Clapton. But if you enjoy pseudo-Renaissance music played in a modern style, and can get over the cheese factor with Candice's singing and the lyrics, you probably will not be disappointed with this album. Without a doubt, there are some catchy tunes here. Besides, a mediocre Blackmore is still far better than most other stuff out there.
It is Blackmore, after all.
Free Music Review: "No, we're not gonna do Stonehenge..."
Hit: 2 Stars
During the first moments of the opening track, I thought "Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane, 'Lather' from 'Crown of Creation'"...
Then the hand-clapping and the "HEYs!" began and visions of Spinal Tap and a Stonehenge that was in danger of being trampled by a dwarf filled my fevered brain...
Then I thought of Patton Oswalt's ongoing "Reno 911" character...the Renaissance Faire guy. I know it's Ritchie Blackmore on guitar but all I could visualize was Patton Oswalt.
Then I thought about Ritchie Blackmore and the excellent "California Jam: Deep Purple Live In California 74" DVD, and that scene at the end of "Space Truckin'" where he plays his Strat with his foot and proceeds to obliterate his Marshall stack, one of the TV cameras, the Strat itself, and pretty much anyone witnessing the event.
Then I imagined attending a Blackmore's Night concert in 2007 and after an hour and a half of being lulled to a restless slumber by the medievally numbing tones of fair damsel Candice, finding out that the encore would be "Smoke On The Water" as played on a lute with pan pipe accompaniment and I woke up screaming, only to find that I was safe at my computer keyboard and in the process of writing my Amazon review for "Under A Violet Moon."
Track after track after oxcart-driven track, this album keeps advancing, like a bustle in the hedgerow or a spring clean for the May Queen. 16 tracks later, I got out my copy of Motörhead's "Everything Louder Than Everything Else" and allowed the reassuring sonic warmth of "I'm So Bad, Baby I Don't Care" to envelop me like a comforting shroud.
I somehow sense that I will receive the highest number of "I did not find this review helpful" ratings in the history of Amazon. That's OK. If I have to choose between Bilbo Baggins or Lemmy Kilmister, I've made my choice. Flame away, if ye must. That's right...I said "YE." With revels and with wassails make grief and care our vassals, Fa-la!
Oy VEY. Gimme a break. Who LISTENS to this stuff?
Fairport Convention pretty much did what Blackmore's Night is doing, and they did it first, and they did it better. For those of you who want to sing the praises of the lovely Candice Night, I have two words for you:
"Sandy Denny."
Ritchie! I know you've had a hard time in the past getting along with others, but is this really the way you intend to spend the rest of your life? While you're peacefully plucking "Durch Den Wald Zum Bach Haus," do you sometimes get the urge to drag the Strat out of mothballs and let 'er rip? Remember how Ian Paice used to kick off the intro to "Fireball" and you'd come in a couple of seconds later like a freight train with that bruising speed boogie riff? You're REALLY OK with trading that for "Possum Goes to Prague?"
You wore the Deep Purple guys out...read the liner notes and watch the interviews from the "Montreux" collections that have been released in the last couple of years. They're very happy without you, and Steve Morse plays all of your old licks at least as well as you did. But maybe you could call up Coverdale and Hughes and do a "Burn Anniversary Tour" or something. Maybe after R.J.D. gets finished with the "Heaven And Hell" Sabbath tour you could put Rainbow back together. Just one tour and a live album. Is that asking too much? Do you remember "Long Live Rock And Roll?" Were you LYING to us? Did you REALLY mean "Long Live 16th Century Madrigals?" NO! You said it! Long Live ROCK AND ROLL!"
Remember that riff from "Man On The Silver Mountain?" That's YOUR riff! You WROTE it! Don't you EVER want to play it again on stage with 50 gazillion people screaming and cheering when you hit those first notes?
Ritchie! You're RITCHIE BLACKMORE! Come ON! How can you NOT want to be RITCHIE BLACKMORE again?
Free Music Review: The incredible shrinking album
Hit: 2 Stars
As my title says, this cd is a "shrinking" one, in contrast to a "grower", those cds that you absolutely hate at first but then love as time goes.This, for me at least, worked in the exact opposite direction.
When I first bought this cd, I was aware of the music style--folk, Rennaissance era music ("Past Time with Good Company" was written by King Henry VIII and is also the best track) touched with a bit of a rock influence.
I loved it. Here it was! Medieval and Rennaissance music! Splendid! A beautiful female vocalist and great male ones too!
Then I started to really listen to it. At the time, my music interests grew outwardly as well. I started getting into different kinds of music, along the same theme only much, much darker. Bands like Emperor and Nokturnal Mortum, while certainly not acceptable to most of those who love trad metal like Deep Purple or Rainbow, do the kind of Ren-medieval era music *much, much* better.
Here it sounds like Blackmore and his fiancee are interested in the music enough to be familiar with it's style and be competent in how to play it. But overall the sound is just cheesy. The lyrics are for the most part uninspired and most of the songs are not memorable in the least. I've never described music as "naive" before, but that's the best word I can think of to describe some of the songs on this album, such as "Wind in the Willows".
"March the Heroes Home" is a kind of Tudor-era patriotic ditty. It has a nice feel, but it's still repetitive and boring.
There are good tracks on here, though: the title, "Under a Violet Moon" is one of my favorites, along with "Catherine Howard's End" and "Past Time with Good Company". I've never heard anymore of Blackmore's Night than this album, so don't let this review discourage you from experimenting with the band, especially since the three tracks above show some promise.
But this is not such a great album. The rennaissance-era music sounds generic and uninspired, the lyrics are boring and unimaginative, and the music is repetitive bordering on irritating. But this project of Blackmore sounds like it has real promise, it just needs to be refined.