release date: Mar. 25, 1972
format: vinyl (TPSA 7504) / cd (2008 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,92]
producer: Deep Purple
label: Purple Records - nationality: England, UK
Tracklist: A) 1. "Highway Star" (4 / 5) - 2. "Maybe I'm a Leo" (3 / 5) - 3. "Pictures of Home" (2,5 / 5) - 4. "Never Before" (2,5 / 5) - - B) 1. "Smoke on the Water" (5 / 5) - 2. "Lazy" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Space Truckin' (3 / 5)
6th studio album by Deep Purple following only 8 months after Fireball (Jul. 1971) is once again produced by the band, and then this is the first album to be released on the band's own new-founded label, Purple Records.
Deep Purple discontinue the style of the predecessor and instead returns to the bolder hard rock style with bonds to Deep Purple in Rock (1970) and as contrary to a more experimental approach based on keyboards, synths and sound effects - and you could argue: with more room for Jon Lord. Now, with guitars back as main instrument, the band returns to a more simple and direct heavy rock founded on blues rock, which focuses on the output from Roger Glover and Ritchie Blackmore.
Chart-wise, the album was an even bigger success than the predecessor topping the national albums chart list and reaching the same top position in many countries, and for the first time making a top-10 in the US with a position as number #7 on the Billboard 200. It's the first (of only two) Deep Purple albums to sell Platinum in the US (the other being Perfect Strangers from 1984).
Machine Head is famous for the band's biggest ever hit "Smoke on the Water". Personally, I have always liked the band's more instrumental and progressive tracks, and "Lazy" is in my mind the perhaps most complex and best track of the album. It's undoubtedly a classic album, but I find that it's a bit uneven. It has three great and unforgettable tracks but its lows are really not memorable. The album is nevertheless enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
Despite an overall sensation of unevenness, this is an album to check out, as it's also a definitive album by the band - before showing a stronger willingness to experiment and pursue other ideas, but with Machine Head, the band checks in stating: we're a heavy rock unit!
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com 5 / 5 stars ]
