I want to like Stormbringer more than I actually do. Well, that describes my feelings towards Deep Purple in general. But this one’s kind of an underdog: it marks uncharted territory for the band with the funk addition which actually works since Coverdale doesn’t opt the vocal mannerisms of funk like a lot of lame white dudes try to do. It also works because the production is the band’s best to date by far, and Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar sound pops out more than ever even though he’s saving his best riffs at this point for Rainbow. There’s a real wranglin’ bend to his playing that’s clean and pleasurable but still just technical enough to assert his hard but smoothly flowing style.

The title track is the one to take from this. Simply put, it’s because it’s the downright weirdest, and Deep Purple rarely played with their sound much throughout their whole career. With the pompous progressive rock keyboard opening, militant riffing, and evocative battle-like imagery it almost comes off as an early precursor to Viking metal. Simpler put, that’s goddamn awesome. “The Gypsy” has some more bite to it while the rest of the album is pretty loose and fun (look at the track titles), and “Soldier of Fortune” is a solid ballad. You’d expect a Deep Purple ballad to be painful, but they reign the short song in before its emotional weight becomes cheap.

I wanted to like this one more, but that was a total of three tracks I remembered anything thing from after they ended. It’s tuneful the whole way through because Blackmore is so excellent and audible, and it’s got some successful experimentation with the title track and funk implementation. It just doesn’t go far enough, and the middle ground is completely pointless. Kind of neat though, so I’d cautiously recommend this to an already converted Deep Purple fan and also note that you can probably find the songs worth keeping on one of their bigger compilation anthologies. Decide for yourself if Stormbringer sounds interesting enough as is.