Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

More of the same. On their second album "Deep Purple" sound more confident than on "Shades" and the only thing this record really misses is a hit single. While "Shades of Deep Purple" had "Hush", this album`s main single - another cover, this time of "Kentucky Woman", is nowhere near as powerful as "Hush". Mainly its problem is that it (to me) doesn`t have the super powerful Deep Purple sound, it`s too much drained in the 1960s and doesn`t seem suited well enough for modern times. This way much more impressive is an original composition by the band - "Listen Learn Read On". The sound of the band here is typical DP of the early years - with a powerful interplay between Blackmore and Lord, only the vocals are very much different - Gillan would roar in a completely different manner, much more powerful. Once again Purple prove themselves as a "Beatles" cover band - this time they try themselves at "We can work it out". Even the original version is not among my favourite Beatles` songs, but the cover adds nothing to it, and unlike their rendition of "Help" there isn`t really any significant change between the original and their version - just the tempo once again is slower (but not radically), but the rest remains pretty true to the original. Plus one more cover - "River deep mountain high" drags on way too long - over ten minutes, which isn`t justified as the band doesn`t do much interesting stuff on here. And overall there is not enough of Blackmore`s presence on this record - this basically is a Lord + Evans record, while all Blackmore does is provide an occasional solo which are far from his best anyway.
I honestly would like to enjoy this record much more, but I simply can`t. Probably I`m just a "Mark II" person, who knows, but "The Book of Taliesyn" certainly is not a record for me.