After Peter Hammill who has just recorded his first album of covers in a career that has lasted more than 50 years, it is Deep Purple's turn, whose career is just as long, to take the risky gamble of a covers album. But if the resident of Bath drew from a repertory spreading from the end of the XIXth century to the 70s, the natives of Hertford confine themselves to songs drawn from a period condensed on 20 years, from the second half of the 50s and the first half of the 70s.
This period has the merit to give a unity of tone to the album. Indeed, the first pitfall of an album of covers lies in the disparity of the revisited titles which, if it is too large, can give the unpleasant sensation of a big mess. Here, we bathe in the rock'n'roll of the origins, the blues and the psychedelic. Deep Purple moves away a little (but not too much) from its usual hard rock to give us vitaminized versions of the titles it revisits.
The other major pitfall of a cover album is in the reinterpretation that is proposed: too faithful, the copy may suffer from its comparison with the original, too far away, it may give the impression of distorting its model. Here again, Deep Purple does quite well. If the group remains globally very faithful to the melodies such as they were composed, the play of the musicians sounds more current, in particular on the solos of guitar and keyboards more contemporary, less obsolete. The main contribution of Deep Purple is moreover the addition of some solos absent from the titles, or shorter, at the time of their creation ('Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu', 'Jenny Take a Ride!', 'Let the Good Times Roll', 'Lucifer'), having even fun to slip, as a wink, the riff of 'Smoke on the Water' in the middle of 'Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu'.
Most of the time, this reinterpretation sounds right and gives a little bit of a new touch to the original songs. Only 'Caught in the Act', which closes the album, seems useless. Rather than a medley, this piece made up of five extracts of songs, including four instrumentals, looks like a collage of scraps of tracks that would not have been retained for the album.
If it is not this slight mistake, "Turning To Crime" turns out to be a well balanced, rhythmic and dancing album. Of course, as for any cover album, we can deplore a lack of originality and creativity, but apart from this reproach linked to this type of production, Deep Purple offers to all the rock fans of the 60's and 70's a rejuvenation cure, giving a dusted version of tracks that do not hide their age.