release date: Dec. 1968
format: cd (2011 remaster)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,96]
producer: Derek Lawrence
label: Victor Entertainment, Japan - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Listen, Learn, Read On" - 2. "Hard Road (Wring That Neck)" - 7. "River Deep, Mountain High"
2nd studio album by Deep Purple originally released by Tetragrammaton in Dec. '68 actually had its first release in the US - as was the case for the debut album - and it wasn't released in the UK until another six months later, in Jun. 1969 on Harvest Records. Although, rather close to the release of the debut, the style is already quite different on this as there has been left more room for progressive rock experimental rock and psychedelic rock on this.
The first two tracks are closely related to "Hush" on the predecessor but the overall sensation is a more original band with ideas beyond just covering the time-typical Hendrix universe. In the aftermath, the most appraised track on the album is undoubtedly the Ike and Tina Turner (with Phil Spector) cover "River Deep, Mountain High", which here in the original version is a completely other track with a running time of more than 10 minutes and showcasing the band's taste for experimental and progressive rock.
With the album, Deep Purple prove to be a band in strong progress. They're not just pale imitators of Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, but they also stumble along that treacherous no rules- experimental road where you easily find yourselves in a dead end street. There's still room for parts that sound like founded on the blues rock style of Hendrix, but there are also compositions that point more to (Frank Zappa and) The Mothers of Invention and Pink Floyd (track #5, "Shield" and track #6 "Anthem") and then there are even bits that sound like inspired by The Walker Brothers, The Beatles and Neil Diamond, which all together makes it a (more than) difficult mish-mash of styles and genres.
It's definitely not all bad, I just never found the long progressive and experimental styles the most interesting parts of late 60s and early 1970s rock to be that exiting.
