DEEP PURPLE IN ROCK

I agree with many that this is the band's peak, their finest hour. The flowery trappings of the sixties are well and truly swept into the dust with this hard, edgy, punching music. Sure, it breaks no new ground, and the writing is nothing to write home about, but the musicianship is great, it sparkles and crackles and kicks you where it hurts. Not a lot of point in listening to much before or after this, there would be no new surprises, though it was often fun, and the later addition of David Coverdale's fine defined vocals was, for me, a plus in an often drab history.