Down, who still play their typical mix of sludge metal and classic rock, prefer to take their time. The band started already back in 1991, but The Purple is only their fourth album to date. The difficulty in judging this album is that I started to like it after quite some effort to dig and try to find interesting elements In the beginning it sounded rather typical and my initial impression was that few things were going on. There are two or three tracks that surely stand out, with my personal favourite being “Witchtripper” which reminds me slightly of ST Vitus. Overall good material but very few moments to make you say "WOW!", or to provoke you.
Purple is definitely not the best Down album. Some may even claim it to be their weakest one. Nonetheless the ageing musicians still know their trade, and the spent voice of Phil Anselmo is still utterly charismatic. It won’t do any harm checking this record nevertheless, despite the humble running time of only 33 minutes. Yeah I know it’s an EP.