Deep Purple

I would add Mean Streak with it's great hard blues approach. The chorus guitar riff definetely brings up the heavy. Lyrics are great and fit the music wonderfully.
Not Responsible contains several kickass riffs too. While the Son of Alerik is great from start to finish.

Album wise, a run from start to finish, Perfect Stranges in my book is second only to Machine Head, tied with In Rock. Fireball has Anyone's Daughter which breaks the whole album experience for me.
 
Zare said:
Not Responsible contains several kickass riffs too. While the Son of Alerik is great from start to finish.
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I need to listen to these two then, I didn't include them because they were both CD bonus tracks with Son of Alerik added as late as 1999. But I'll check em out!
 
I've heard "Hush" before and I love Machine Head, but I've just started listening to Purple from the beginning at the insistence of my album review partner.

Currently on the final MK1 album (Deep Purple) and I gotta say: it's really doing nothing for me. Some decent songs and cool moments, but ultimately too psychedelic, too 60's-influenced, too meandering for my tastes. Looking forward to MKII/III!
 
This will fix up those early albums for you

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But, yeah, I generally agree .. the first 3 albums really show the potential is there for what would follow. But, if Purple stopped there, they would be a forgotten band outside of Hush
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I've heard "Hush" before and I love Machine Head, but I've just started listening to Purple from the beginning at the insistence of my album review partner.

Currently on the final MK1 album (Deep Purple) and I gotta say: it's really doing nothing for me. Some decent songs and cool moments, but ultimately too psychedelic, too 60's-influenced, too meandering for my tastes. Looking forward to MKII/III!
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Do feel free to join in with your reviews of those albums MrKnickerbocker. The more the merrier :)

I've begun listening to House of Blue Light a bit, and I'll post a review in the next few days :)
 
I'll keep my reviews brief, because honestly these albums feel like a big, jammy blur to me.

Shades of Deep Purple
And the Address sets the stage for a heaviness that never really returns. It's a great introduction to Blackmore and Lord's style, but does little else for the album. I've always loved Hush, despite it's reputation as the "obligatory single". The next two tracks are just pure blah, except for parts of the Happiness prelude - which again sound like exactly what they are: Blackmore and Lord wishing the band was heavier than it is. Mandrake Root sounds like Foxy Lady and goes way off the rails, Help takes a Beatles song I don't really like and turns it into a psychedelic song, which I really don't like, and Love Help Me has cool music and lame vocals and lyrics. The intro to Hey Joe is fantastic, but once the vocals kick in it's nothing special. Overall, it sounds like an album that is constantly being pulled in two directions - one that wants to be a psychedelic Beatles tribute act and one that wants to be what Purple would later become.

The Book of Taliesyn
Again, another album that sounds exactly like what it is: an incredibly rushed attempt to capitalize on a sound that was not yet fully-formed. Listen, Learn, Read On has a few cool musical sections, but the vocals are corny and the song is just utterly forgettable. Wring That Neck is cool at first but then Blackmore goes completely off the rails. That dead stop where he's just climbing some atonal scale is painful to me. The less said about Kentucky Woman, the better. Exposition starts things off nicely but lasts too long before segueing poorly into another blah Beatles cover that I couldn't care less about. Shield is a pretty cool song: good groove, nice instrumentation and vocals. It couldn't possibly sound more 60's, but at least it's cohesive. The percussion is great, but the production towards the end of the song really overpowers the vibe. Anthem is the musical equivalent of a sigh until that very odd, interesting bridge instrumental. River High, Mountain Deep is another ridiculous choice of cover with a meandering psychedelic jam intro that I simply cannot get into.

Deep Purple III
Amazing percussion kicks off Chasing Shadows, which might be my overall favorite song on the first three albums. It has a killer groove and some cool vocals. Blind is also a solid song with Evans adding a little bit of snarl to his delivery that works rather well. Lord's neoclassical harpsichord stuff here sounds truly bizarre and unique. Lalena is a decent ballad and I really enjoy the bluesy swing that subtly kicks in halfway through the song. This cover works surprisingly well. Fault Line is an annoying sound experiment. The Painter is a barnburner, but the lyrics don't really go anywhere. Speaking of going nowhere, Why Didn't Rosemary and Bird Has Flown are very nondescript, filler heavy blues tracks. April is the most dynamic, progressive, and impressive music Purple have written up to this point - for the first 8 & 1/2 minutes. Putting trite lyrics and a standard rock song at the end is so pointless that it detracts from the impact of the instrumental suite that precedes it. Despite some of the long-windedness, this is definitely my favorite of the first three albums and it clearly hints at the direction they would take on the next few albums.
 
If you've read my reviews I'm pretty much in complete agreement with your take on the progression of the band in the Rod Evans days. From a band with one foot firmly planted in the 60s and the sound of contemporaries like Moby Grape, Vanilla Fudge etc, to the confusing attempt at finding their sound on Taliesyn before pulling in a heavier blusier direction on the self titled...

Cool to see that you're mentioning the same highlights from the albums too...Shield, Blind, April,..:)

I love their take on Help though. Turns the song on it's head.
 
SixesAlltheway said:
If you've read my reviews I'm pretty much in complete agreement with your take on the progression of the band in the Rod Evans days. From a band with one foot firmly planted in the 60s and the sound of contemporaries like Moby Grape, Vanilla Fudge etc, to the confusing attempt at finding their sound on Taliesyn before pulling in a heavier blusier direction on the self titled...

Cool to see that you're mentioning the same highlights from the albums too...Shield, Blind, April,..:)

I love their take on Help though. Turns the song on it's head.
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Just went back and read through your reviews, we definitely share similar opinions (though I believe you're too kind on some of the pieces). My biggest problem with the material so far is also my biggest problem with Blackmore in general: lack of self-restraint. By the time he got to the Rainbow records this stuff was out of his system, but the live albums still contained 20/30-minute jams of songs. I can't handle that much jam!

As far as Help is considered, I'm just not a big Beatles fan.
 
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House of Blue Light (1987)

1984's reunion albums Perfect Strangers had seen the reunited lineup still possessing a great deal of enthusiasm and passion. Perfect Strangers was a breath of fresh air and showed that these old timers still had it. Now time had come for their second attempt, released three years later, House of Blue Light was to show if the Perfect Strangers album had just been a fluke of if the chemistry truly was back....

The album starts out strong with a brief organ blast that leads into Bad Attitude. A decent rocker with a great pounding rhythm and a snarling vocal performance from Gillan. One of his better performances on the album in fact, with a great catchy chorus:

You got yourself a load of trouble now
You got yourself a bad deal
You say I've got a bad attitude
How'd you think I feel....

Unwritten Law and Call of the Wild have OK choruses and are both well played but are also both extremely safe tracks. Nothing really sticks out or makes you remember them, despite both being OK decent. Mad Dog shows more "bite" and is an intense, riff driven song that closes with a great Blackmore solo. Overall the first half of the album perhaps showcases the higher focus on melody this album has. It's hard rock yes, but with a clear emphasis on the poppier side of the spectrum. Which is part of the problem. Most of the tracks here are actually pretty decent, obviously played by a group of talented musicians, but they all sound rather mundane and samey. It's just not a very challenging effort. That said though, a couple of tracks do manage to stand out. Aforementioned Bad Attitude - but also the bluesy Mitzi Dupree and the neoclassical speed metal romp of Dead or Alive. The latter featuring some really epic picking parts and a classic Lord/Blackmore trade off. Clear highlight. Also worth mentioning is Strangeways, a song that utilizes great hypnotic guitar and piano parts.

Overall a decent effort. The songs are all decent but at the same time many of them also quite clearly written to be melodic and catchy, which makes it harder to differentiate some of them. I guess Deep Purple just hit the late 80s big time with this album....B)

I miss the band cutting more loose on this album. They do try, on songs such as Dead or Alive, Mad Dog and Strangeways but it never really peaks and nothing really makes me go wow on this one. Perhaps some of it can come down to production but I never really feel the songs have enough kick to them.

Highlights: Bad Attiude, Mad Dog, Dead or Alive.
 
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I was pretty disappointed in this when it came out ... I think you nailed the highlights, but none of those are really all that spectacular and the rest of the songs are just there ... like a series of paint by numbers Deep Purple songs .. nothing horribly bad, just a lot of "ok"
 
bearfan said:
I was pretty disappointed in this when it came out ... I think you nailed the highlights, but none of those are really all that spectacular and the rest of the songs are just there ... like a series of paint by numbers Deep Purple songs .. nothing horribly bad, just a lot of "ok"
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Yup. It's a weird album like that. While listening to it you're entertained. And you think to yourself OK this is quite good. There's a lot of heavy stuff here and it's all very decent. But then when the album is over you hardly remember anything from it.
 
I think part of the problem might be in the production myself. I mean it's a good sounding album but it's also very thick, AOR sounding. It has that big bass sound. Many of the songs, and the moments when they don't paint by numbers, just ends up being drowned in that I think...I say, without not really knowing too much about it...

But yes. The album really misses some more courage, someone not afraid to let loose. That was the whole strength of the earlier output. It's like none of them really wanna stand out on this album. Not even Blackmore. Which makes the album sound very contrived...
 
Good point, I am guessing the Blackmore/Gillan animosity probably played a roll as well and you ended up with a bunch of negotiated compromises for songs
 
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