Beautifully illustrated by Jérome Bosh's "L'Enfer du Musicien", this ultimate Deep Purple Mark I album is undoubtedly the best one. Lord, Blackmore and Paice have found their path during the tours and want to impose it. They fired their manager and looked for replacements for the Evans/Simper duo during the year 69.
"Deep Purple" is the album of the rupture. The sound is a little more aggressive, the organ of Lord appears suddenly more hoarse as on "The Painter" of which all the first part was recorded then replayed in reverse... Original! Blackmore's guitar squeaks with all its strings in an authentic and very dandy "Blind" and Ian Paice finally shows us all his talent by splitting with his toms the shadows of "Chasing Shadows".
But the good moments are not limited to that! "Lalena", the only cover of the album is sublime. Evans' vocals become poignant and Lord's organ has been wailing throughout the five-minute track. "April," arguably the most beautiful composition on Purple Mark I, plays in the 10+ minute category. Here, each musician is at his best, and Lord leads a classical passage of great quality (flutes, violins, horns and clarinets) for four minutes.
"Deep Purple" lives up to its name and destabilizes the listener at times, just like the surrealist illustration on the cover. This album has got in its heart inhabited, raw and furiously Rock n' Roll passages ("Why didn't Roesmary"?). We feel a great creative madness, a desire to fight, a talent in full bloom. The Deep Purple of "Space Truckin'" and other "Lazy" was born here, no doubt.
When this album was released, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover (both ex-Episode Six)had already What better way to conclude this review than with a quote from Ian Gillan: "When I first saw the three of them with their puffy hairdoes and wide lace collar shirts, I couldn't remember bursting out laughing, we had to change all that!"