DON AIREY – A Light In The Sky

Imagine, if you will, bliss in the state of music, ecstasy in notes, emotion dancing within your ear drums; all this creating a cloud nine… unbelievable and unknown to you.  And it seems as if all the music you once knew dwindled away, making way for this magnificent new sound. Don Airey (keyboardist for Deep Purple) creates this phantasmagoria with the help of Laurence Cottle (bass), Chris Childs (bass), Darrin Mooney (drums), Harry James (drums and vocals), Rob Harris (guitar), Lidia Baich (violin), Danny Bowes (vocals), and Carl Sentence (vocals) in the new album A Light in the Sky.

A Light in the Sky is Airey’s first solo album in nearly 20 years. It’s a mixture of Metal, Prog, Classic Rock, and Jazz all entwined with almost a chill tone. Airey’s past doesn’t stop with Deep Purple though. He has played with legends such as Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Ozzy, Rainbow, Gary Moore and even Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“Big Bang” and “Ripples In The Fabric Of Time” are morphed together. These two songs would be just fantastic live!! They have it all, chill vocals, jazzy keyboards, soft symbols, great guitar licks, everything.  When you hear the beginning of this CD your eyes will widen, your mouth will water, you’ll want more. There’s no better way to describe this than out of this world.

The third track, “Shooting Star” starts off with classic keyboards and Harry James singing with his magnificent vocals. These dancing with the other instruments creates an explosion of Rock. The result of all these awesome musicians playing together is more than imaginable. “Space Troll Patrol” follows this track. You can tell Don had fun with this song, just look at the name. This is a very jazz themed piece, keyboard wise at least. Airey’s just hammering away at the keyboards and it actually sounds good.

“Andromedia M31” starts off with a soothing guitar lick which seems to dance in and out of your soul. This instrumental just grasps your psyche with everything it has and drifts you off into a parallel world. It’s like a trance, and who doesn’t enjoy a change of the state of mind now and then?  “Endless Night” is the complete opposite. It’s a much more upbeat Prog-themed song. Still amazing, nonetheless.

Let’s not go into details of the last five tracks and leave it as a surprise. Let’s just put it into these simple words: this music is like peanut butter to jelly, strings to your guitar, a double bass pedal for Thrash Metal… it’s a necessity.