Deep Purple has been both blessed and cursed with an elaborate and diverse history. The blessing is obvious: nearly four decades of groundbreaking music and obscene riches from the sale of millions upon millions of copies of their recorded works. The curse, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult to fully appreciate.

Sustained success has come to Deep Purple only after Genesis-sized battles of ego, a succession of personnel that has involved over a dozen players and more lawyers than your average local bar association, yet here they stand in 2006 reaffirming their classic line: “When we rock, we rock, and when we roll, we roll.”

Though they are most frequently referenced as the creators of the greatest all-time guitar anthem, “Smoke on the Water,” Deep Purple’s latest release, Rapture of the Deep, reveals a classic group that is neither afraid to embrace its past nor bound by it.

Rather than completely ignoring their pedigree, Deep Purple, with the urging of producer Michael Bradford, took a look back to the days when an album’s worth of work came largely from five guys facing off against each other (generally, but not exclusively, in the musical sense) and letting the tones settle where they may. Historically, the practice worked with albums such as In Rock, Fireball, Burn, and the group’s signature Machine Head, all testifying to the success of the approach. Their most recent work was recorded in just five weeks and comes not from individual writing sessions, but from full-on band jams; the results are glorious.

Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover humbly gives Bradford serious credit for the new-old approach. In a recent interview with Egypt Today, he paraphrased and expanded on Bradford’s input, saying, “He said, ‘There is no secret to the sound of Deep Purple, it is just the way you play so just do it. I really think that I can bring Deep Purple back to that sound.’ And we all appreciated that because we had begun to loath our past. We always knew that we were not a one-trick pony and we proved it time and again, but most will never see anything in Purple past those five chords from Smoke on the Water and you know what, that’s OK with us now because we are making the music that we want and people are enjoying it. What more could we ask for than to be paid to do what we love? He [Bradford] actually gave us the courage to do that, and that’s why I think this album sounds like a throwback to the seventies, if you like.”

Bradford’s encouragement obviously impacted the band and the result is one of the most phenomenally explosive and emotive discs issued under the Deep Purple banner. Rapture boasts a sixty-minute barrage of music with every track on par or exceeding the level of brilliance shown in any of the group’s classic tracks.

The album sees the band continuing in its progressive tradition, but it also brims with all the tried and true elements that fans have come to expect from the group, including the scale-dancing screams of Ian Gillan and enough guitar overdrive to melt speakers — as it should be for a band that the Guinness Book of World Records once cited as “The loudest band in the world.”

Individual tracks including “Don’t Let Go,” “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,” and “Money Talks” are destined to become perennial live favorites and rate with classics “Speed Kind,” “Highway Star” and “Woman from Tokyo,” as if they were written in the very same sessions. Deep Purple has come close to remolding its own legend on this new disc and has done so strictly on its own terms.

Though the band has moved from progenitors of pop psychedelia to heavy-metal heroes and on to progressive rock icons, Deep Purple has always been sonically distinguishable as Deep Purple. The roster of players, though always less important than the music itself, has changed since the days when you could pick up a sales chart and see five independent entries listed under the name. Long-gone are legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and keyboardist Jon Lord, one of the rare few who made the Hammond organ central to a rock group’s sound. Remaining with Deep Purple from the 1970s are Gillan, the most identifiable voice in rock, Glover, and drummer Ian Paice. They were joined in the mid-1990s by former Kansas guitarist Steve Morse and journeyman keyboardist Don Airey (see box for an exclusive et interview with Airey).

With the addition of Steve Morse in 1994, the band took a decidedly left turn. The tension that energized the classic sound was replaced by exuberant shouts of collective musical happiness. These five gentlemen not only appear in person but sound on record as though they are having the times of their lives. According to Morse, “I have nothing but good thoughts when somebody mentions Deep Purple. It is the most perfect gig for me in the whole world because everything is here: history, musicianship and camaraderie.”

The mix of old blood with new has obviously reenergized both the music and the fan base and resulted in Rapture of the Deep becoming the top downloaded album worldwide for its initial month of release, according to the group’s website, www.deep-purple.com.

Though the history of rock music has produced many strange and improbable stories, few are more intriguing than the ascent and perpetuation of loud-music pioneers Deep Purple, whose categorization is redefined with each successive release. They are harsh, heavy, crushing, sweet and progressive, but always singularly Deep Purple.  et