Fireball

[Zzzptm]

The band Warpig opened up for Deep Purple and this was one of their tunes... and if it sounds a whole lot like "Fireball", well, you'd be right. There's also bits of other songs in there, but I digress. After Blackmore steals the tune, Gillan absolutely electrifies the vocal and the rest of the band opens up with both barrels to give us:

Copy or not, Deep Purple totally makes it their own song. Unlike other bands where just the singers recorded over session musicians, Deep Purple fired their own artillery and made history because of that. I love what the band does with this song, all their Mk2 openers, really.

When I first heard "No No No", I was a off-guard. I didn't quite know what to expect, since it was my first time to hear the track, but it didn't take me long to get into it, not at all. The bass + guitar fills between lyrical lines are fun little touches that I always enjoy. When Blackmore shifts gears and gets his solo going from howling effects to simple picking, I'm totally with him on it. Having recently listened to all of Mk1 recently, I can't help but think that this would have been a muddled, poppish, classically-laden tune had the band stayed in that line. Thankfully, they broke those shackles and figured out that they wanted to play heavy music, and they liked playing it hard and fast. While this song ain't fast, it's certainly hard, especially the interlude just after Lord's wonderful bluesy solo. Paice is losing his mind as he plays his brains out on those drums.

On the USA release, "Strange Kind of Woman" comes next, and there's no "Demon's Eye", but I'll add that one one at the end of the review. Anyway, SKoW was a song that I didn't really get when I was younger. Yeah, it's a blues tune. So what? Led Zeppelin did a lot of blues tunes with the amps all the way up. Meh. As I got older, I started to hear more in the song than before. I started to pick up on the groove and not care too much about the goofy lyrics. Although I think "Woman From Tokyo" has a better ooooo-ooo-ooo part, this one does quite nicely. Blackmore's solo sounds a lot easier than it actually is, that's one thing I definitely learned over time. It's my least favorite tune on Side One, but now it's much closer to 3rd place than it was in my younger days.

"Anyone's Daughter" sounds like Blackmore listened to Zeppelin III and decided, "Right. We're doing an acoustic number. With a country flavour." Some studio faffing sounds eventually give way to Blackmore showing his love for country music, even going so far as to use a slide guitar to give it a pseudo-pedal-steel guitar touch. The lyric is a mischievous little twisted tale, reminiscent of "Why Didn't Rosemary" in terms of hinting at things for comic effect when stating them directly would just shock and then fall flat.

The title track is the strongest from Side One, followed by "No No No" in second, with "Anyone's Daughter" and "Strange Kind of Woman" not very far off. I enjoy them all, but if I had to put things in an order, that's how I would do it. Now on to Side Two...

This side is definitely the thinking man's side. Both "The Mule" and "Fools" are unexpected compositions, with very little of the blues structure and both being much closer to classical, sonata forms in their construction. The main theme in "The Mule" is reminiscent of Ravel's "Bolero" and Gillan's lyric is essentially a mostly through-composed verse without any chorus that then gives way to the keyboard's pensive solo. Blackmore's jam is a sharp change in sound, but then he returns to the drone with a lengthier phased guitar solo. The finish is similar to "Mandrake Root" - but with loads more drums. No wonder this became the intro for Ian Paice's solos in the live shows.

"Fools" has such a calm start, musically and vocally, I was worried it would be a soft-pop song. And then, right when I'm sure it's going to be a Jon Lord vehicle, WHAM! the band hits me with an aluminum baseball bat and I'm in the middle of a hard rock song. But it's got an unusual structure to it with an intense lyric and brooding lead instruments. I'm wondering if it isn't in some way influenced by Black Sabbath's "Hand of Doom" in terms of the sharp changes and overall sound. Not an out-and-out copy, mind you, but influenced.

The second part's classical-sounding volume effects solo was already part of the stage act, this is just where it happens to be committed to vinyl in the studio. It's a strong contrast to the first half, even the pop-sounding intro. This is Bach finding his way into Blackmore's soloing, and the influence absolutely works. We'll hear more of it on Machine Head and beyond, but here is where it starts.

We get back to the hard at the 3/4ths mark and then we end on a haunting keyboard solo. It should be no surprise that this song totally threw me for a loop when I was a kid. I did not understand it at all or what the band was trying to do. But I later on got it, I started to see a way into it, you could say. When I saw this live with Morse on guitar, it was heavenly to behold. This is the track that really makes the album, I feel. It separates the album from the ones just before and just after it. As you can see, it's the one I've written the most about, and that's a telling feature for the music in it.

It should also be no surprise that I initially found "No One Came" much more accessible - and I still do. It's a fun track with a funky vibe to it. Great solos, goofy backwards stuff at the end, and an acid wit in the lyric that made it my favorite track of the whole album. Paicey's drumming plays right across the lines and is perhaps the best thing to listen to on the track, next to the singing.

Now the addendum, "Demon's Eye". I first heard this on the Deepest Purple compilation and wondered why it wasn't on any album. Well, now it is. But I add it at the end of the listing here since it was initially separate from my first years with the album. Even so, it fits in wonderfully, along with the bonus tracks from the 25th anniversary (or was it 30th anniversary? my mind fades with age...) CD. Hearing this along with the bonus tracks makes me wish this had been a double studio album release, but, well, does it matter so long as I have those tracks now? I suppose not, and they certainly are worth checking out. The track is straight-up blues-based fuzz, and I prefer it to SKoW, all things considered. It has more of the "No No No" feel to it which I enjoyed at the start of the album. It's a solid track that certainly stands on its own, as it had to do for so many years here in the USA.

Fireball is definitely exploratory and lyrical, relative to In Rock. I wouldn't say it's a softer album - just one track takes an easygoing attitude - it's a *different* album. Vive la difference!