If you only have a standard DVD video player with Dolby Digital surround, you will be able to hear a lower-fidelity version for this format, but you won't get to see the video content or hear the higher quality audio version.

For the record, I have not purchased this particular disc, but I do have the ELP Brain Salad Surgery audio DVD. It poses the same difficulty: video features and higher quality sound are not accesible on a regular DVD player.


30 Years New   February 7, 2001
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

So, this is the shape of music to come eh? Take an excellant, superbly recorded and mixed album from 30 years ago and make it sound like it was just done yesterday. Without a doubt the greatest breakthrough in music since the first CD was pressed. 6.0 sound track, 5.1 soundtrack, and for those who don't want to know what they're missing, 2.0 soundtrack. All in Dolby Digital All with highs so crisp they cut like a knife. All with bass so intense if you walk in front of your subwoofer you will do yourself an injury. And all with every nuance of the music brought out in crystal clear clarity. The DVD contains the 7 original tracks plus the bonus 45rpm flipside of When A Blind Man Cries. Add to this video of the band playing Highway Star and Lazy from the Danish TV in 1971 and you have one special little package. Too bad it dosen't have the alternate tracks and out-takes from the 25th anniversary CD, then it would have been perfect. If you want to hear your music sound like the soundtrack from a modern movie buy this DVD. You will need a DVD player marked with the DVD AUDIO label in order to play the videos or the 6.0 tracks. If you don't have one, the 5.1 is just as effective for seperation and effect. There are quite a few other albums in Deep Purple's discography that I would like to see recieve this treatment. Shall we say, all of them!


Brilliant Purple   May 16, 2000
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Deep Purple at their ultimate very best. The classic line up of Gillian, Blackmore, Lord, Glover and Paice. Too bad they only made a few albums with this grouping. Sure, we all know it's tough to get along with Ritchie Blackmore, but the esoteric types usually are. Blackmore shreds & slings like there is no tomorrow on Machine Head. All the band members click her, but most notably are Blackmore & Ian Paice. Paice is one of the most under-rated drummers ever... he cooks on this album. His drumming is smooth and almost effortless. "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water" are two songs that any person even slightly interested in rock & roll will remember. But, the songs that didn't make it to the radio (or got very little air play) are the ones that hold this great album together. "Pictures of Home", "Maybe I'm a Leo", "Never Before"... and "Lazy"... how can you not jump up from whatever you are doing and just run yourself silly? This classic hard rock is full of energy & heart. A 1972 essential in any rock library.


As good as it gets   May 30, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

One of the very few albums where there is absolutely no filler. Called "the original heavy metal album" in the liner notes, every track has Ritchie Blackmore's great riffs, Jon Lord's haunting keyboards and Ian Gillian's snarling vocals. But to call it "heavy metal" is a bit of a disservice to those who may think of the genre as undecipherable, talent-depleted noise. Here the members, all veterans of the British rock scene blend their talents beautifully in a no-nonsense style that defied the glam rock so popular out of Britain at the time. The lyrics express fantasy, loss and lonliness, and simpler themes like car ownership. Best tracks are "Pictures of Home" ("I'm alone here, with emptiness, eagles and snow, unfriendliness chilling my body...") and "Lazy", with the great keyboard into and uptempo beat. "Smoke on the Water" will be a classic rock anthem until all us Baby Boomers are back in diapers and "Highway Star", despite the silly lyrics, will get you up to 75 or more if you're on the Interstate. One of the albums I actually once owned an 8-Track of, it sounds as good today as it did back in the early '70s.