You slip and slide round my brain.

Deep Purple - Fireball - 1971

This album, the second one to be recorded by the legendary MK II starts in a very similar way to its predecessor, with a relentless rocker, the title track, that reminds me quite a bit of "Speed King". And the similarities between the two go on for a bit, but I always thought this was a slightly inferior album, as if the band were just gathering momentum for their massive next album.
Don't get me wrong, I like most of the songs here, and a couple are big favourites of mine. But it feels as if the album, as a whole, drags a bit at times. Take "Anyone's Daughter", for example: it is a cool song, but I really don't think the album needed the almost bucolic country vibe the song has. Also, I find the flirtation with progressive rock a bit too much here at times.
Still, there are some brilliant moments here, and if you get any of the later editions, you can get what probably are the best tracks here: "Demon's Eye" and "Strange Kind of Woman". And it's hard to find a track here that could be called "bad". I like it less than the two MKII classics, but really not by too much, and it's fully a matter of personal taste.

• The baseline of "The Mule" at times makes me think of a sped up version of "Tomorrow Never Knows", by The Beatles. Not too sure why. 
• "Fools" is an example of what I meant by their excessive flirtation with progressive rock. I always liked how Jon Lord's classical background added to the band, but the mid-section here drags. Other than that, it's a great song. 
• The closing track from the original album, "No One Came" has a certain Hendrix feel to it. Which is not a bad thing at all, of course. 
• "Demon's Eye" is not only my favourite song here, it's also an awesome place. Good memories, good times. 

I'm gonna build all my castles on top of my dreams

Leaf Hound - Growers of Mushrooms - 1971

I guess some bands are just unlucky. You listen to an album, and wonder how it is that they didn't make it bigger in their day.
This one is a fine example of that. I can't say I know anything about this band, other than the little I read about today, which is that they only released this album, at least with the original lineup, and that one of the members went on to form Atomic Rooster, a band I'm only slightly more familiar with. Oh, and also that the vinyl has become a very sought-after collection item.
Why do I say they were unlucky? Well, because this album is a pretty awesome hard rock album, with a very good singer and a very good guitarist, and not really one single bad track here. Most likely, they just fell under the shadow of bigger bands, like Led Zeppelin, and only a few people ever noticed them.
Their style is somewhere in between Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, I guess, with just the occasional touch of psychedelia. At their least original, they do sound a lot like Zep, but still pretty distinguishable because vocalist Pete French's range is different from Plant's.
Apart from becoming a valued collector's item, this album apparently became very influential in a lot of stoner bands from the 90s onwards, and you can understand it listening to it.
For me, this was one hell of a hidden gem, and one album I will be coming back to.

• Apparently Pete French was considered to be the vocalist of Deep Purple after Gillan left, and it doesn't surprise me, because he's got a good range and a soulful, quite raw delivery.
• It seems a bit ironic and strange to me that the "odd man out" of the album is the title track, which instead of the hard rock / metal / bluesy vibe the rest of the album has, sounds like pure psychedelic rock. Still pretty good, though.
• It was actually quite hard for me to put this album as the second one on the list for today. The only reason why I ended up doing it, is because Deep Purple with Gillan makes me so happy, even when Fireball is not one of my favourites.

There's a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad

The Doors - L.A.Woman - 1971

I really wanted to like this one so much, it almost makes me sad it doesn't.
I mean, this is the last album Jim Morrison ever recorded, he would die only months after it was released. 

And the worst part is that, while not perfect, musically the band did sound quite solid, and had a lot of good ideas. Also, I do like the bluesy style that the album has for the most part. 

And this is what makes me quite sad because, for the most part, what I find the hardest to put up with through the album is Jim Morrison's vocals. While he apparently was sober during the recording of this one, the booze had done considerable damage to his voice, and even on such a cool track as "L.A.Woman", you can tell that he sounds like a drunk with a bad cold for most of the time. And it's a shame, because the song is absolutely brilliant, both from the point of view of composition and the arrangement. Well, the "mojo risin' " part is a bit annoying, but anyway. 

A couple of days ago, referring to Janis Joplin's Pearl, I was wondering if her album would have been so highly regarded had she not died. And I still wonder, but that album was pretty much an unfinished product and Janis's vocals shone all the way through. In this case, though, I am absolutely certain that if Morrison hadn't died after its released, there's no way it would have been considered as such a great album.

I remember back when I talked about the first album, I made a point about how much of the brilliant atmosphere of their music was conveyed by Morrison's nuanced vocals. All that is completely lost here. And it makes me very sad.

• Promise to self: Never listen to "L.A.Woman" again with good headphones. His vocals are really bad.
• "Riders on the Storm" is still a wonderful song. If I was writing about the album back in the days of vinyl, I would say that song, together with "Love her Madly" and "L.A.Woman", if you can put up with the vocals, were worth the purchase. But we don't really need that anymore.