Fireball: 25th Anniversary Edition - Deep Purple

Before I write this I must caveat it by saying that I have just got back froma Deep Purple gig in St Petersburg where they blew me away. They were awesome - brilliant brilliant brilliant!! OK, it helped that I happened by chance to stay at the same hotel as them , get to the very front of the arena (mad Russian crowd there - it was wild!) and was thrown one of Ian Paices drumsticks at the end of the gig - but the music and performance was great! And so I have been going over a few of the old Puprle albums - and generally people regared the classic 3 albums as In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head, with Fireball often cited as the weakest of the 3 (not an insult - ...  Read the complete review

Fireball is Deep Purple's 5th album and was originally released in 1971, it's often highly praised and Ian Gillan considers it to be one of the band's classic albums whilst the rest of the band don't, I'm afraid that I'm with the rest of the band. It's not as guitar driven as I would like it, some tracks like "No One Came" go overboard on the organ sound. Throughout the album the lyrics have a sort of cheesy entertainment value. I personally really enjoy the song "Anyone's Daughter" although it's a completely different kettle of fish from the rest of album, it's a brilliant fun song. Fireball is a pretty odd album in that it ...  Read the complete review

This album features the Mark II line up and seven tracks the title track being the best known. a couple of strange tracks on this one, "fools" complete with a pink floyd style intro and rather lacklustre altogether,and "anyones daughter" with what sounds like honky tonk piano and slide guitars and is just awful. The remaining tracks are all well up to standard with "fireball", "demons eye" and "the mule" the most listenable. Not a classic purple album then, but certainly worth having,although the standout tracks here feature on later live and compilation albums. ...  Read the complete review

What a good album this is. 1971 vintage British progressive rock from one of the finest bands to come from these shores. This is from the revered "Mark 2" version of Deep Purple; Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Jon Lord, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. I think it's fair to say most fans prefer this line up over the others. After the breakthrough of In Rock, the band spent quite a while getting this album recorded. Whilst that earlier album was hard rock to the bone, this one is more melodic and tries out a few different styles, notably in the crazy-but-fun C&W twang of "Anyone's Daughter" and the physchadelic tones of "The ...  Read the complete review

FIREBALL was different, yes it was vintage Purple. From the moment that the air conditioning system was switched on to the reversed fade out on “No One Came”. It was not one of those all out head banging albums. It was in some way more grown up, more intricate, more poetic and more thoughtful. Or may be that was my mates and me. We certainly identified with the sentiments. “ I stood under your bedroom window. Throwing up a brick” That last line was soon changed! We were forever having parties and guess what “ No one came” our parents were As Stubborn as a “The Mule” Wherever we asked for something we were tolled “ No ...  Read the complete review