WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE

Just in order to put paid to any notion of me being a rabid DP fangirl, I have chosen this album for my first one-star review... They say that there is no bigger disappointment than the one you get from someone you love, and this is very true as far as the aptly-titled Who Do We Think We Are? is concerned. This album, released only one year after the awesome double whammy of Made in Japan and Machine Head gives new meaning to the word 'anticlimactic', and shows a band on the brink of disintegration. Of course, as everyone knows, soon afterwards Deep Purple would come back bigger and better than ever (though with a different lineup and sound) - but this disc remains a blot on their discography, though unfortunately not the only one.

There is not much to say about Who Do We Think We Are?, seen as it is mostly a flat, samey effort that never really sticks in the listener's mind. The sole exceptions to this rule are opener Woman from Tokyo, which, while not the band's strongest effort by any means, manages at least some semblance of quality, and the scathing Mary Long, dedicated to the same Mary Whitehouse (a notorious British campaigner for morality and decency) indicted by Pink Floyd in Pigs - Three Different Ones. The other songs, though competently executed, are totally forgettable, and seem to blur into each other in a sort of shapeless mess. Even the bonus tracks feel disposable, unlike those included on the remastered editions of In Rock and Burn - the lengthy instrumental First Day Jam being far from the best example of the band's mastery, in spite of a decent performance by Hammond king Jon Lord.

Probably, if the album had been released by another band, my rating would have been higher (though not by much). However, we are talking about Deep Purple here, and we have the right to expect something better from one of the undisputed legends of rock. If you are a fan, or want to complete your collection, try to find it secondhand, or discounted (as I did) - otherwise, it is not worth shelling out too much of your hard-earned cash for this very weak, undistinguished effort. Get Burn instead - even with a new lineup, it is everything the title promises.