SHADES OF DEEP PURPLE

"Shades of Deep Purple" is the debut full-length album by UK hard rock act Deep Purple. When I was younger and the internet was only a thing the really nerdy guys knew how to use I thought that "Deep Purple in Rock (1970)" was the debut album by Deep Purple and it was only later that I discovered that Deep Purple had actually released three studio albums before that one. Imagine the surprise. The original lineup on those three albums featured lead vocalist Rod Evans (later of Captain Beyond) and bassist Nick Simper. It wouldn´t be until "Deep Purple in Rock" that Ian Gillan and Roger Glover would join the band.

Deep Purple recorded a lot of cover songs for their early albums and three out of eight tracks on "Shades of Deep Purple" are not written by the band. A bit of a shame really as all three cover songs drag the album down IMO. The cover of The Beatles track "Help" is especially awful. It borders blasphemy IMO. The original songs are much better and I have to mention "Mandrake Root" with it´s extented organ and guitar solo as the highlight of the album. A great track that one. The most adventurous moment on the album is the first two minutes of "Prelude: happiness / I'm so glad" which is a direct translation of the first movement of "Scheherazade" (Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov). Other than that the music is greatly influenced by hard rock artists like Cream and Jimi Hendrix. There´s also some psychadelic leanings.

The musicianship is pretty good and Jon Lord´s organ is already a dominant part of Deep Purple´s sound. Ritchie Blackmore shines a couple of times too. His trademark guitar sound is already in the making. There are not many memorable riffs though (maybe except for the Hendrix like main riff in "Mandrake Root").

The production is raw and I imagine that the album was recorded within a short time frame.

"Shades of Deep Purple" is a pretty good but not wildly impressive debut album by Deep Purple but I wish that they wouldn´t have included those cover tunes. An album full of original tunes would have earned them a 3 star rating but with the cover tracks I can only give the album a 2.5 star rating.