Don Airey – All Out

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Keyboardists making solo albums is pretty rare. They usually either end up being instrumental self-indulgence exercises like Jordan Rudess‘s, or guest-laden, over-blown campness like Rick Wakeman‘s. Enduring legend Don Airey, currently with Deep Purple is now on his second disc, and has gone for a consistent line-up this time instead of the guests last time out. The result on A Light In The Sky, released in 2008, was very hit and miss. When a guest of quality contributed (usually Thunder singer Danny Bowes), good, catchy rock songs were produced. When they didn’t, they weren’t. Now with Carl Sentance, who is straight out of the Coverdale/Gillan/Martin school of singing, handling vocals on every track, in front of one-time Black Sabbath bassist Laurence Cottle, Primal Scream/Gary Moore drummer Darrin Mooney and Jamiroquai guitarist Rob Harris, when Airey isn’t turning a classical arrangements into an organ solo, what’s presented on All Out is hooky slabs of grooving Purple-ish rock (particularly a brooding Wrath of Thor reminiscent of Perfect Strangers). Guest guitartists Joe Bonamassa (People In Your Head), Bernie Marsden (Running From The Shadows, The Way I Feel Inside) and Keith Airey (Long Road) chip in with brilliant solos, but these are just additions to the now-coherent sound of a proper band, instead of the lynch-pin the guests were on the first album. All Out is definitely better than A Light In The Sky, with a brilliant cover of Hendrix’s Fire providing a very pleasant mid-album sing-a-long, but there are still too many instrumental work-outs (four tracks out of ten) to keep the disc truly interesting; almost like Airey really wants to show off for an hour, but knows he probably shouldn’t.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Albums, Hard Rock, Quick.Play Reviews, Don Airey