DEEP PURPLE

Starting with the great Chasing Shadows (a fave of mine) with Ian Paice showing us a few tricks notably a cow bell and the calm and moody Blind with spine-tingling harpsichord, the album comes to a beautyful stop with the superb rendition of Donovan's Lalena. A bit lenghty , but does Evans have a great voice! Then comes a real treat with Fault Line and its reverse drums recording as a prelude to the explosive The Painter, Purple shows us some real gifts in moody and climatic music.

Why Didn't Rosemary is certainly the kind of track Blackmore was really pushing for as he was becoming a bit restless and felt it was time for changes (to come soon). Bird Has Flown is probably the weakest track around on this album (and I never knew whether there was a link with The Beatles's Norwegian Wood track), but it appears to me as rather lenghty! But then comes the real treat: the three part April which can be deconstucted as an almost Acoustic Purple with Blackmore and Paice taking the show with Lord underlining a superb melody as the Overture. After some 5 minutes, comes the "Pièce De Résistance" when Jon Lord finally dares writing classical music and what a job he does with a reduced unit (as he completely missed out for the Symphonic Orchestra in the Concerto , their next album) and rivetting writing (abeit a bit derivative odf Classical masters) . The orchestra then pause a second than gives a chord once , then twice (as if Purple had missed out on the cue the first time) and comes the explosion. They really blow my mind with this Finale , where they manage in threeminutes to giveof their best of themselves and a superb farewell to the album (and as it turned out to the now-named MK I line-up and toprogressive rock in general). Stupendous and some 30 years later , I cannot listen to this track once, I have to replay it again!

Then after this album will come the changes we all know and Purple will be one of the creators of Heavy Metal (as Zep and Sabbath will also) and some proghead see them as the grandfather of progmetal , something I am not all trhat sure about but why not? Anyway they will kick arse severely ! But I do have a soft spot in my heart for this first line-up who in three albums , managed a superb Oeuvre noew defined as Proto-prog! Great job , guys!!!

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