Blackmore’s Night
Fires At Midnight
Under a Violet Moon
Shadow of the Moon
SPV/Steamhammer
Professional frustration, entry #138: just can’t get my head ‘round these three Blackmore’s Night albums, Fires At Midnight being the latest, Shadow of the Moon the oldest (1997). Dunno why, but I guess I’m more than a bit dumbstruck considering that, after all, this is one of the co-founders of The Heavy Metal Guitar. Basically, what we’ve got here is Sir Ritchie of Deep Purple/Rainbow fame joined by partner (?) Candice Night, a woman in possession of an alluring voice and even more alluring looks, playing medieval folk music that’d fit in nicely at a renaissance festival (I should know • I was just at one). The period garb’s here, as are the instruments (hurdy gurdy, pennywhistle, flugelhorn, mandolin, bagpipes, etc.), but that’s as thorough of a qualitative analysis as you’re gonna get from me, for all three records are essentially interchangeable with scant few differences among them. However, a friend of mine who’s something of an eclectic folk aficionado said that Blackmore’s Night is pretty good n’ authentic stuff, so take his word well before mine; I mean, c’mon • I mostly review extreme metal and artsy punk crap, so cut me some slack. Now that’s professionalism!
SPV, PO Box 72 1147, 30531 Hanover, Germany; http://www.spv.de, http://www.spvusa.com, http://www.ritchieblackmore.com
