FIREBALL

I remember I was waiting for this album to come out for quite awhile. I enjoyed the "In Rock" so much that I am sure I was looking for them to do a "Son of In Rock" continuation from their previous album. I must say when I first heard this album, I was very disappointed. The boys decided to go in another musical direction on this and I wasn't sure I wanted to go along. The first strike against this new work was "Anyone's Daughter" which was countryish in nature. I didn't think it was appropriate for a heavy band to do C&W music. The next strike was on the song "Fools". Don't get me wrong, the song is an excellent piece, but what I had against it was the solo section where it seemed that Mr. Blackmore was experimenting to long on a slow and tiresome idea. If he had shortened it to one minute and threw in some changes making the song another 2 or 3 minutes longer, I would have completely loved the tune. As it was, the solo part just took a lot away from the rest of the song. Now for the good parts. "Fireball was akin to the "In Rock" stuff and is a good tune, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. "No,No,No" is such a departure that it just grabbed me by the throat. It is simply a stroke of genius. Plus it is a longer song and has some interesting things going on there. I don't remember "Demon's Eye" being on this. I remember "Strange Kind of Woman" being after "No,No,No". "Strange Kind of Woman" is another great tune with some excellent solo work by Richie and Jon. Since I've already made my statements on "Anyone's Daughter" and "Fools", I will skip them. "The Mule" is the one that I think was my favorite out of all the tunes, because of the spiritual aspect to it. It is also a real kicker in the solo section as well. I think I will have to say this also has some overtones of "In Rock" to it. The last song "No one came" is wonderful. The lyrics just make you think. The song is about the down side of being a rock star. I think the most memorable line on the whole album is in this. Ian Gillan sarcastically says "Man, Who's he?" He is of course referring to people listening to their music after they have gone. He realizes that they will get no respect from many of a new generation. I just love that song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, I can only give this one three stars because I feel it is inferior to their previous album. Even if they hadn't made any albums before, this one still could have been done better than it was. Be that as it may, I still enjoy listening to it.