The last few weeks of Metal Mondays have focused on albums which were arguable firsts in heavy metal history. This week we go back in time a few months, as this album came out prior to Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come, which was covered last week.
But Deep Purple are notable as they have been referred to as part of the “unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-seventies”, alongside Black Sabbath, whose debut album I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and Led Zeppelin.
Deep Purple are a blind spot for me, I can’t ever remember listening to them, and couldn’t name a song, beyond Smoke On The Water. So I came into this one completely new, meaning; similar to my review of Sabbath’s debut, there’s no nostalgia for me here. And SPOILER ALERT, this is another one where I’m gonna argue that a classic album isn’t that good.
This wasn’t their debut, they’d already released three albums and achieved some success, moreso in the US than the UK. However, they had struggled to settle on their musical identity. The band’s guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, decided he wanted to go really heavy having been inspired by Led Zep. Which led to some shenanigans in the run-up to recording as the original singer and bassist were secretly ousted, and replaced by musicians who were better suited to their new, harder direction. The result was Deep Purple’s first foray into heavy metal (or at least something close to it).
Deep Purple – Deep Purple in Rock
Can we just start by taking a second to appreciate how shite the album cover is. I get that the photoshop tech wasn’t there yet, but still… I was gonna mention how cliché it is as well, but in 1970 it was an original idea, to be fair.
The start of the album is pretty cool though. Speed King begins with a wall of feedback, and what feels like a barrage of riffs breaking loose. I can imagine the rocks from the album cover crumbling away under the POWER OF THE RIFFAGE 🤘
Sorry about that… The song then goes into an extended intro, rocks the fuck out, breaks off into a bit of a Doors-y vibe, then quickly rocks the fuck out again; living up to it’s title. It’s a promising start.
Bloodsucker is a good follow-up. A bit of a Led Zep-style hard blues number. Singer, Ian Gillan, was definitely a fine fit for their new direction. He’s up there with Robert Plant; his powerful bluesy voice works perfectly alongside the heaviness, and he can inject some wild wailing where necessary. But it always sounds good; like a controlled chaos.
Child in Time is one of their most famous songs. A ten minute slow-burn quiet>loud epic. And it’s ok… Apparently an anti-Vietnam war protest song, but for me it doesn’t have any particular impact, there’s really not much to it lyrically and it’s all a bit vague. Listening now, I was just thinking that Led Zep would pretty much perfect this style (and do it more concisely) with Stairway to Heaven. And Sabbath had a much more powerful, heavy protest song in War Pigs, which was released a couple months on from this.
Flight of the Rat sounds a bit like The Who and it’s decent enough, but goes too long and ends up on an extended drum solo; c’mon, nobody wants that. Into the Fire and Living Wreck are both solid enough. But, by this point, in the album I can’t help but feeling a bit bored. They’ve got a good box of tricks, but it feels like they’ve revealed them all and are repeating themselves now. And then there’s a seven minute closer FFS. Again, it’s got some decent stuff in there but no way it needed to be as long.
That was pretty much my takeaway from the album; it generally sounds good, and no doubt they’re talented. But it just drags and largely left me feeling indifferent. I’m all about quality control, I reckon you could easily lose 10 minutes from the album and I’d probably have loved it.
Like Sabbath’s debut, this is a classic which doesn’t quite hold up for me. But unlike Sabbath, I don’t think this really has the distinction of being a trendsetter in rock history. It goes hard, but so what? This is mostly stuff that Led Zep were already doing better.
Rating:
Best Tunes: Speed King, Into the Fire, Living Wreck
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