WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE

I guess that for any band in the world, it is quite a difficult moment to produce an album after such a studio masterpiece than "Machine Head" and an alike live one as "In Japan". On top of that, the ambience within the band is desastrous. Blackmore and Gillan can hardly stand each other at the time. Gillan already wanted to quit but was encouraged to record another studio album (I guess financials were involved in his decision ...). They are trying to produce a second "Machine Head" but won't succeed even if this album is a good one. Still, we were accustomed to such a high standard bt the Purple that this one sounds weak in comparison.

In remembrance of their fantastic live record MIJ, the Purple will create the opener " Woman from Tokyo" to their new beloved Japaneese audience. Great hard rock song with a good riff. Tempo is slower than their traditional openers during Mark II. "Mary Long" is quite a good track (although 100% macho) : great rythm, strong keys and drumming. Ian performs quite well here. "Super Trouper" is alike to "Bloodsucker" from "In Rock" or to "Maybe, I'm A Leo" from "Machine Head". A good hard rocking song again but nothing fancy; this is exactly the problem with this record. Most of the tracks are good, but almost none is on par with "Machine" or "In Rock". "Smooth Dancer" is a great hard rock tune : fantastic background work from Roger and Ian as well as nice piano from Jon. The vocal parts, as I have already mentioned were strongly influenced by the left over track "Freedom" from the "Fireball" sessions (two years before). Piano / organ moments are just gorgeous pieces : Jon is at his best (as usual) should I say. It is a great piece of rock'n'roll music. Probably the highlight here, together with the title track. Side one is very good. Let's say that it is on par with "Fireball". B-side starts with "Rat Bat Blue" which is a good rocking track again. Ian Paice and Jon Lord are at their best. They managed to bring this track to the "Machine" level. "Place In Line" is a bluesy tune which has flavour of "Lazy". It kicks out after 2'25" and the kind of jamming session it develops after that is quite good. Great keys from the master. "Our Lady" could have been performed by the Mark I line-up. Quite mellow and monocord. The weakest track.

The remastered version has lots of bonuses. "Painted Horse" is an outake and is quite good. Since the album was quite short, I think it should have deserved to be included in there. There are some remix versions of "Rat Bat Blue", "Woman" and "Our Lady" (which has a very good finale and which IMO is better than the official version). "First Day Jam" is a very long ... jam session (over eleven minutes). Bluesy and highlighting Jon's skills (but do we need such thing to confirm this) ? Three stars for this effort.

This will be the end of the Mark II line-up for this time being. They will come back as such (much) later on. But Mark III will also deliver great moments. I have been writing the reviews for the Deep or the Purple or Deep Purple if you prefer during the last two months together with other giant bands like Genesis, Yes and twelve (to be precise) other ones.

I am posting the Purple ones together with the Yes ones. This was not by chance. There are a lot of similarities between both bands : they started almost at the same time, they have produced several good cover songs in their early days, they will change from line-up several times but both will return to their core one occasionnally, they produced masterpieces (studio and live ones), they are still touring and finaly they are two of my all time, all genres preferred bands. Thank you very, very much both Ian's, Ritchie, Jon and Roger. My youth has been impregnated by your work and I will ALWAYS love you. Thank you guys !