Unknown Soldier

Thanks for checking in and hope you enjoy the reviews, sure that's a great album which usually gets overlooked but is essential in every way. That's a great song as well.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Overview
Often cited as one of the most important albums that influenced the ‘heavy metal genre’ Machine Head would prove to be the crowning glory of Deep Purple and one of the greatest albums surely of the decade. Like any great album, it has the band with their definitive line-up of Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice, a line-up that would be the envy of any band. Since the bands gradual shift in direction from their proggy roots on their third album, to the more high octane powered sound on In Rock, Deep Purple were surely destined to release a monster of an album, to match the very best that either Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath had put out. In Rock nearly got them there and Fireball should’ve been the album that launched them into the stratosphere, but in the end Fireball proved to be too light-hearted and too self-indulgent to make that leap and so it would be down to Machine Head to concrete the band in the annals of heavy music awesomeness! Machine Head usually figures in most greatest albums lists and is easily one of the best features on the “Classic Albums” television series that was featured here in the UK and the album like a lot of classic albums, was recorded under rather troublesome conditions. The album was recorded in Montreaux Switzerland, but not in the original location that had been planned for the band in the Montreaux Casino. As the Casino had been involved in a fire during a Frank Zappa concert prompting the band to choose a different location, which would turn out to be the abandoned nearby Pavilion Theatre. The fire that took place at the Montreaux Casino would be famously documented on “Smoke on the Water”. Once in the Pavilion Theatre, the band quickly set-up there and started to cut the album, but they soon fell foul of the local police, who had dozens of nearby residents complaining of the noise! This forced the band to then then move onto the Grand Hotel now their third venue and after an arduous and problematic recording sessions they finally cut the complete album. Now this review just wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the album cover at some stage and its deceptively basic blurred image of the band, really leaves things open to the viewer's own interpretation.

Ian Gillan- Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore- Guitar
Roger Glover- Bass
Jon Lord- Keyboards
Ian Paice- Drums

Production- Deep Purple

Album
Highway Star- A bona-fide classic which sees Ian Gillan’s revved up crooning blazing away, with the super-fast sound of the song and contains the legendary soloing duet between Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord, which just doesn’t let up for a second. Maybe I’m a Leo- A plodding heavy number that remains one of the albums most solid entries and a great second track after the frantic opener. Pictures of Home- The band at their most melodic and this a real band effort throughout, is often quoted as being Jon Lord’s favourite song from the album and further engages us with some extended jamming towards the end of the song. Never Before- Another song that starts off with a plodding intro, which continues throughout the song and is then accompanied throughout the song by Ian Gillan’s melodic vocals, and later enhanced by Jon Lord’s keyboards towards the end. Smoke on the Water- Need I really say anything about this song? So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 40 years you should know this riff! If you don’t then please do so, as it’s vital that you do! Lazy- 7 minutes of progressive style jamming and the longest track on the album and then finally emerges into another heavy bluesy effort. Space Truckin’- Of all the tracks on this album this has to be my very favourite. It starts off as a pacey light hearted number, before moving into one of Ritchie Blackmore’s top-of-the-class driving riffs and probably Ian Gillan’s most revved up screaming vocals to date and let’s not forget Ian Paice’s brilliant drumming on the track as well. Later versions of the album have the vital “When I Blind Man Cries” This is a beautiful song that closes the album, as an album like this should close.

Verdict
Machine Head might well be the most complete hard rock album ever recorded and despite being essentially just a hard rock album, there are so many varied elements on this album. From the speed of “Highway Star” to the progressiveness of “Lazy” to the heavy bluesy feel of “Maybe I’m a Leo” and onto the dinosaur heaviness and riffing of “Smoke on the Water”. All these aspects would later prove to be vital in the development of heavy metal as the decade went on, thus making it not just another hard rock release. If we break the album down, we can see that Machine Head captures the high speed and intensity of In Rock, with its classic album opener “Highway Star” which proves this point to perfection. Then there is the bluesy plodding of “Maybe I’m a Leo” and “Never Before” two tracks which provide the heavy backbone of the album, and then there is the melodic approach of “Pictures of Home” and again “Never Before” which now mixes both melody and heaviness to a real level of excellence. Also the progressive elements of the band are satisfied as well, not just on individual tracks, because here they help to form and shape certain tracks like “Pictures of Home” and “Lazy”. There is of course “Smoke on the Water” which is based around the Frank Zappa concert, which saw the burning down the Montreaux Casino and the song probably has one of the most famous riffs in all Metaldom! Also this review would not be complete without mentioning the sheer madness and heaviness of “Space Truckin'” a song which still makes me go weak at the knees! Finally there is “When a Blind Man Cries” which for many a year I thought was actually officially part of the album, as it was always on my copy of the album, but I later realized that it was just an extra song and actually a b-side. Personally Machine Head in its original form is the perfect album, but “When A Blind Man Cries” is added to the album, it seems to enhance proceedings even more and serves I think as the perfect album closer, as it’s the only ballad style track on the album and also resonates a real beauty to highlight the franticness and heaviness that the rest of the album has. Machine Head is quite simply a monster of an album and suitable for both a beginner or an experienced ear, to hear the finer delights of such a fabled hard rock recording!

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Scarlett O'Hara

I absolutely adore your Deep Purple album review. It is an important album but I think I just generally really enjoyed it, particularly growing up.

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Unknown Soldier

Glad you liked it, some reviews I write come really easy to me whilst others take a lot more time to think up, the Machine Head review came really easily to me.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

I bought Machine Head way back in high school and thought it was cool enough, but it just sounded dated to me, so I never truly got into it, but a few years ago it just started making sense to me and is now one of my favorite albums, metal or not, of all time. Every song is perfect and just fun as all hell. I love that it's heavy as hell, but still got this sort of lazy, almost country feel at times that really gives it a unique atmosphere that just takes it to a whole 'nother level. If Sabbath is a bad trip, then Deep Purple is the guy sitting next to Sabbath telling him to quit harshing on his buzz. I'd have to go with Sabbath in general, but I enjoy Machine Head more than any single Sabbath album. So, **** yeah, Machine Head.

Side note: I also like that "Lazy" starts with exactly four minutes and twenty seconds of jamming before the vocals kick in. So, in case you didn't know just why the guy in the song is so lazy...

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Unknown Soldier

Ahhh the country element may well be your interpretation of some of the Deep Purple humour in their music, which from time to time does take on "a country feel" I don't think I've ever read this about the band, but I know the sound that you mean.

Good point concerning "Lazy"

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Scarlett O'Hara

What do you think about their song Child In Time? I absolutely wet myself with happiness when I heard the guitar solo and incredible singing by Ian Gillan. I'd say that out of all the Deep Purple albums, Deep Purple In Rock is my absolute favourite. They are one of my favourite bands (a huge list) and really love their emotion and use of the keyboard.

Isn't it interesting how frequent it was from 60's till present day of bands that changed line ups really often? Do you guys thing drugs and alcohol addictions was a substantial factor?

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Unknown Soldier

I'd say drug and alcohol were the main issues here. The problem mostly ocurred where either the addiction was running out of control or the person with the severe addiction was the minority in the band, and was therefore kicked out. Whereas on the other hand, bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin saw nobody leaving as they were all heavy drug users and drinkers anyway. So it's kind of a balancing act.

Then there is the clash of personalities within a band and also people jumping ship because they felt that success could be found elsewhwere.

I've always seen and still do, that bands that have had multiple line-up changes, to be inferior to bands that have kept a stable line-up, it's not always the case but around 80% of the time I would say it was so.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Also Check This Out........
This is an extra album from the same year that I've chosen, that either just missed the final cut, I think could be of interest, or even from a different genre that could be of interest or influence on the hard rock/heavy metal genre.


Bang were meant to be America’s answer to Black Sabbath and they actually started their career running-off cover versions of Sabbath tracks amongst other well known luminaries of the day. This was a three-piece outfit from Philadelphia, whose early attempts at recording an album were shelved by the record company upon signing them. The album was seen a bit too psychedelic for the record label and this album Death of a Country would resurface several years later! Instead Capitol wanted them to produce a carbon copy of a Black Sabbath album and Bang to be fair did this to an admirable standard, sure they may have ripped off Sabbath to a degree, but they did these songs some justice. Just listening to tracks like “Lions, Christians” “The Queen” and “Future Shock” are a prime example of this and singer Frank Ferrara and guitarist Frank Glicken, sounded and laid down licks that could’ve been done by either Ozzy or Tony from Sabbath. This album is a good effort, despite lacking the brute force of say Sir Lord Baltimore, the wild abandon of early Blue Cheer, the authenticity of Sabbath themselves and the jamming ability of Grand Funk Railroad, who were of course the label’s principal ‘heavy band’ at the time. Bang didn’t get the commercial break that they were looking for on this their official debut album and then bad management ruined the promotion of their sophomore set Mother/Bow to the King also released the same year and a far more diverse album and equally as good. Bang were another one of those early heavy casualties, that really seemed to afflict American heavy bands of that era. They would then plough on for a final effort on their third album Bang Music in 1973. Here are three cuts from the first two albums.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

Haven't given In Rock as much attention as it deserves, but yeah, "Child In Time" definitely pwns big time. One of the few bands that can do the whole extended jam/prog thing without turning it into self indulgent wank. Of course, I'm sure Unknown Soldier would disagree, but fuck him.

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