DEEP PURPLE

On their third self-titled outing Deep Purple start sounding more confident about their future direction. Compared to the first two, here the amalgalm of adventurous proto-prog and boogie hard rock is much more wholesome, without the sentiment that they had to throw on a bunch of fillers and covers to make the album reach 40 minutes. Furthermore, Rod Evans mostly decides to get rid of that awfully affected voice, and he sounds great here, very similar to youthful Greg Lake. The album starts out strongly with three proggish tracks. Out of these "Blind" really stands out with the harpsichord riffing and a very good vocal performance by Rod Evans. These three songs are followed by a simpler bunch three blues-rock songs, similar to Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, etc...Out of them especially "Why Didn't Rosemary" and "Painter" foreshadow the hard rock direction the band would take with the classic Mk.II, however the musicians still sound a bit too restricted to groove convincingly. Finally we get to the 12-minute full-on proto-prog track "April", dominated by neoclassical sounds of Jon Lords organ and Ritchie's acoustic guitar (which unfortunately didn't make an appearance on any of DP's classic string of albums). In the middle there is a detached section featuring string and wind arrangements by Jon Lord. Altogether the whole attempt at classical rock sounds amateur and awfully dated, but perhaps the Purps should be given props for trying so hard. This album is the one to get for those wishing to explore DP's early proto-prog roots! Unfortunately, the band was losing commercial base despite their musical growth, only reaching #162 on U.S charts, full 138 places behind their debut! The fellas saw a need to revamp their sound completely, resulting in the next two releases, that were basically purified versions of this album, one being in the classical rock style of "April" and the other building up from the hard rock foundation.