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Deep Purple - Who Do We Think We Are CD (album) cover

WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE

Deep Purple

 

Proto-Prog

3.05 | 635 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
2 stars Running on empty

Deep Purple followed up the world conquering "Machine head" with this clear attempt at creating a facsimile. Unfortunately, relationships within the band were rapidly reaching breaking point, and any semblance of harmony had all but disappeared. Indeed, before the next album ("Burn") was recorded, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover would have moved on.

The problem with "Who do we think we are" is that apart from the opening track "Woman from Tokyo", there is nothing whatsoever to get excited about. It is as if the band's composers are unwilling to submit anything decent to the sinking ship (the credits are conveniently democratic), and the performers are doing only what is required of them.

"Woman from Tokyo" is the exception though. While not quite up there with the ultimate Deep Purple songs, it is worthy of a place in any "Best of" collection. The song has prog overtones, with the driving rock which identifies the track being countered by a "Strange kind of woman" like centre section (which sounds more than a little like the Kinks' "Tired of waiting"). Had the band come up with a few more songs of this quality, we may have been hailing this album as another DP great.

Unfortunately, the inspiration pretty much evaporates as the track fades. Blackmore's brief solos are functional but dull. Jon Lord contributes some decent organ work, particularly on the otherwise forgettable "Rat bat blue", and Gillan does his best to sound excited when clearly he is not.

On a couple of tracks, "Smooth dancer" and "Our lady", we move into Uriah Heep territory, the latter having the choral harmonies of that fine band. The only other song worthy of mention is "Place in line" which is a decent but undistinguished upbeat blues.

In all, a very average album which devotees of the band will probably find sufficiently in line with previous offerings to be of merit. For the rest though, there are far better Deep Purple albums than this.

While the outer sleeve of the LP is poor, the inside has some wonderful press clippings from the early days of Deep Purple, with headlines such as "Purple devastate Edinburgh", "Eating ban on Deep Purple men", and "Deep Purple taking over the world".

Easy Livin | 2/5 |

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