review by thomas

At last Purple got almost everything right. In this seven songs set it’s only the single “Never Before” that leaves you unsatisfied. And the problem with “Smoke on the Water” is certainly not that it’s a bad song, no, the problem is that it has been played to death.

The famous quartet from this album is “Highway Star”, “Lazy”, “Space Truckin’” and “Smoke on the Water”. These are songs that appear on almost every live or compilation album made. The more overlooked and forgotten tracks are “Picture of Home”, with an absolute amazing intro, and “Maybe I’m a Leo”, these are in fact better than both “Smoke…” and “Lazy”. The Purple members bring forth some of their best performances and especially singer Ian Gillan is in perfect form. You will never hear him better his performance from “Machine Head”.

A more down to earth hard rock album from Purple. Not as experimental as “Fireball” or as metallic as “In Rock”, but in fact better than both of ‘em. A classic hard rock album.