Fireball

From the opening metallic whoop of the title track, *Fireball* is an album of superlative heavy rock power and progressive intent, from a band delighting in their collective abilities. The relatively chipper and folky “Anyone’s Daughter” aside, it’s a collection in which the five players take a lead role, each instrument either weaving around the others and jostling for attention (“The Mule,” “No One Came”) or coming together in unison to deliver riffs of crushing intensity (“Fools,” “Demon’s Eye”).

One of Deep Purple's four indispensable albums (the others being In Rock, Machine Head, and Burn), 1971's Fireball saw the band broadening out from the no-holds-barred hard rock direction of the previous year's cacophonous In Rock.