Band : Deep Purple
Album title : Phoenix Rising
Label : Ear Music Records – V2
Distributor : Ear Music Records – V2
Release Date : 31/07/2011
Release : CD + DVD

Fans of Deep Purple must be pleased with this issue.  Last year ‘Come Taste The Band’ was re-issued, and now this issue, which consists of an 8 track CD, featuring some tracks of the only studio album Deep Purple MK IV ever released ‘Come Taste The Band’ an album that was not exactly every Purple fan’s favorite, but also some of their well known tracks. Besides the CD, you get a DVD.  On it is about 30 minutes footage of a live show they played in the Budokan hall in Japan on December 15, 1975.  The quality of this material is astoundingly good, if yoy take into account that this was originally shot in 1975, and that since the material has greatly improved and evolved.  Even the sound is quite good. 

Besides that there’s also a rockumentary of about 80 minutes, about the rise, or should I say rather fall of Deep Purple MK IV.  After all, not so long thereafter the group split, due to internal tensions. 
The quality of the material on the rockumentary shows it’s age, it’s sometimes quite fuzzy and unsharp, and some of it is even in black and white.
I would say this is material for die hard Deep Purple fans.  If you’re not that into the group, I see no reason to buy this.

75/100

Erik Morren.