Naked Thunder

Eirik Solum (June 8, 2004)

Gillan was fired from Deep Purple in 1989, after "The House of Blue Light" and the follow up tour and live album "Nobody's Perfect" - due to conflict and guitarist Blackmore's wish to move on to other musical territories.

Gillans first solo effort since the early eighties "Naked Thunder" is not as thuderous as the title suggests. It is a melodic, radio friendly and well performed album. Gillan sings great but not with the power and almost frenetic guts from the classic Purple-aera. "Loving on Borrowed Time", "No Good Luck" and others are catchy peices fo music perfect for wisteling and sing alongs. This is a red line through the hole album. But there are rockes too, like the opener "Gut Reaction" and "Love Gun", fast and quite aggressive tunes with intensive playing, singing - and a trademark scream or two.

Among the performers Gillan teamed up with for this recording are drummer Simon Phillips, later found in TOTO, and co-writer and guitarist Steve Morris, who is a name known from Gillans early days in The Moonshiners. His contributions are great on this album.

All in all a good record, some great tunes, but not very interesting or anything progressive. But Ian Gillan says this is his favourite solo album, so...give it a try. You will like some of it, anyway.