Flashback CD Review #115 - Ian Gillan - Gillan's Inn

This review was originally written for the Rock Is Life.com website in 2006.

Ian Gillan

Gillan's Inn

Immergent Records - 2006

http://www.gillan.com

What's the 4-1-1?

Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan celebrates his 40 years in music by redoing classic selections from his back catalog with an all-star lineup of special guests.

The CD is a DualDisc release with the album in 5.1 Surround Sound, a making of video, select your own soloist for the guitar solo in "Smoke on the Water", and a commentary from Gillan on each track. Other special features include a DVD-ROM bonus track, a DVD side only bonus track, lyrics, a photo gallery and rare video footage of Ian Gillan with both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

Genre

Rock / Hard Rock / Classic Rock

The Good

The CD: I liked the moderate pacing of "Bluesy Blue Sea" and the fun light tone of the closing track "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." Joe Satriani appears on three of the songs on the disc including "Speed King" which is pretty much always cool to hear. However, "Unchain Your Brain" is simply marvelous. The guitar work is great and Ian Gillan's spitfire vocal delivery opens the album on a great note.

The song "No Worries" has a great swampy blues feel to it and is probably one of the best songs on this album. But the album is best served by "Trashed". The song is an all out ball-busting rocker and well worth inclusion here.

The DVD: The track-by-track commentary is pretty good. It gives insight into both the origins of the songs and how the new versions came about.

The DVD version of the album contains a track not on the CD side. It is called "Demon's Eye" and it is a really sweet sounding song that I wish was on the CD portion of the DualDisc.

The Witness Protection feature is a bunch of rare photos accompanied by the bonus track "Can I Get a Witness". I don't much care for the phot features, but the song was pretty good.

For guitar aficionados, the DVD includes a choose your own soloist special feature. I'm not really in need of this but it can't be bad when you can hear Joe Satriani, Steve Morse, Jeff Healey and Michael Lee Jackson interpret the guitar solo for "Smoke on the Water", one of the all time classic rock songs.

The Bad

The CD: There are only two flaws in the CD. The song "When A Blind Man Cries" just didn't catch my ear. While I'm sure it is a faithful redo of the track, I just don't want to hear it again. While the remake of "Smoke on the Water" is very good, I didn't care for the chorus of backing vocals being so high in the mix.

The DVD: The Bootlege Basement special feature is two songs from a 1994 Belgium Deep Purple concert. It was during the time Joe Satriani was the guitarist. They were taken from unauthorized DVD bootlegs and I have to wonder why something of poor video quality (though decent audio wise) would be thrown onto this release.

The handwritten lyrics and liner notes are rather hard on the eyes to keep up with. I think this type of "special" feature should be done away with on all DVD releases.

The Brick By Brick feature is a 26 minute documentary. It gives the viewer a making of look at the album, but I thought it would've been better had it had a vocal rather than text narrative.

The Verdict

The goal here was to acknowledge, look back and celebrate the varied contributions Ian Gillan has made to rock music over 40 years. I'd say that mission is accomplished.

I'm not really a fan of the Dual Disc format, but this is one that at least has some decent material on it for a change.

I really love Gillan's voice and this album serves as yet another way to introduce me to the great material he has done over the years. I always seem to find something I haven't heard before that makes me glad I grabbed the release.

I think you'll enjoy this album. It has got a lot of everything you could possibly want to hear.

Did You Know?

While still a teenager, Ian Gillan fronted the band The Javelins for three years. He played in a band called Episode Six with bassist Roger Glover prior to both of them joining Deep Purple. He joined Black Sabbath in 1983 and recorded the album Born Again.

Rating: 4 out of 5