Captain Beyond is a one-of-a-kind progressive album with rock, heavy metal, and jazz influences with a "space rock" lyrical bend. Formed by former members of Deep Purple (Rod Evans, vocals), Iron Butterfly (Rhino, lead guitar, and Lee Dorman, bass), and Johnny Winter (Bobby Caldwell, drums) Captain Beyond is an album that flows from riff to riff, drumbeat to drumbeat, often with various time signatures within the same song. Taking a tip from the Moody Blues, songs flow directly into each other without benefit of any lag time between selections.

MK III: The Final Concerts, alternatively entitled Archive Alive, is a live album by Deep Purple, recorded during the band's 1975 European tour in support of the Stormbringer album. It was released in 1996. This double CD release is culled from the very last performances from Deep Purple MK III featuring Ritchie Blackmore before he left to launch his new band Rainbow with singer Ronnie James Dio. The album features for the most part material from the last concert of the tour held at the Palais des Sports, Paris 7 April 1975, with a few tracks taken from two shows in Graz, Austria, 3 and 4 April.

Vocalist Graham Bonnet fronts this group consisting of drummer extraordinaire Cozy Powell, guitarists Ray Fenwick and Jan Akkerman, with Chris Cozens on keyboards, and guests like Terry Pack and Mo Foster on bass. The album begins awkwardly with a bit of bombast called "Hit and Run" but gets more hard pop with "Always," a drum beat that Roxy Music utilized on Manifesto, and that Elton John chose for "Healing Hands" under a melody that sounds totally derivative. Rocking harder than "Touch Me," the 1974 hit Fenwick composed for his group Fancy, but not as aggressive as that Top 20 song, there's the balancing act going on here of Cozy Powell's arena rock attitude and Ray Fenwick's pop sensibilities.