FIREBALL

Fireball is a bit of a letdown when you think it came just after the powerful In Rock and before their magnum opus Machine Head. It simply was not up to Deep Purple´s high standard, much less when you think how talented was this line up. Ok, Fireball is still stronger than their final studio album Who Do You Think We Are, but I found not too many bright spots here. Let´s see.

The album kicks off with the powerful title track: a truly fantastic song that shows everything DP is capable of: an inspired number with outstanding performances by all band members. A classic tune, no less. I always thought it as a bit short but a classic anyway. Oh, how I wish the whole album would come out the same way! But then followed by No No No, a mediocre song that is only partially saved (well, sort of) by the elegant Jon Lord organ solo and the band´s competence. It is also too long. Demon´s Eye sounds half baked, could be a lot better (again there is a good Lord solo). The very unusual Anyone´s Daughter is an improvement albeit quite uncharacteristic: a nice piano and slide guitar featured on this blues/folk/jazz number that shows how versatile DP can be.

The mule is just a filler, a good excuse on live shows for a drum solo. Fools is a little on the more experimental side of the band and it works quite well as that. No One Came is a good, inspired, hard rock number. Overall one can see the band was not really sure what direction to take and they admitted that on later interviews.

A little trivia for DP fanatics: when released in Brazil in the early 70´s Fireball had Demon´s Eye substituted by Strange Kind Of Woman (although the former was credit on the LP´s sleeve, which led to much confusion). I wish the band had done that too, since that song is much better than Demon´s Eye.

I don´t have the new remastered version with bonus tracks so I cannot say anything about them.

Conclusion: an uneven album. It has some quite good tracks among lesser ones. Good CD? Yes, definitely. But this same line up had done much better before and after this one. Rating: somewhere between 3 and 3,5 stars.