Deep Purple - In Rock (Warner Bros.)

To appreciate Deep Purple -- whether the "Mark II" Ian Gillan / Ritchie Blackmore / Jon Lord / Roger Glover / Ian Paice group that turned out this classic slab an was soon to be ranked by Guinness the "world's loudest", or later editions featuring the ill-fated Tommy Bolin and that odd Stevie Nicks look-a-like (feathered hair, snakeskin, diaphanous white blouses) David Coverdale -- you have to accept that a real, working metal band can be campy without inevitably turning into Spinal Tap.

If this idea seems terminally English to you, that's OK, too, because the records still hold up. While no masterpiece of goofy heaviosity ala Machine Head, In Rock is still touched by genius. Ian Gillan, in addition to be being one of rock's champion screamers, is also one of hard rock's quintessential lyricists. "Speed King" remains one of his greatest odes to testosterone. Nothing doomy (Sabbath) or flowery (Zeppelin) here, just a knucklehead extension those tried-and-true Chuck Berry tropes. IMO, only Motorhead's Lemmy and Kyuss' John Garcia have come closes to capturing the carefree nihilism of Gillan at his best, yet neither one possesses his sense of theater. Lemmy grimaces and yowls at the slow pace maintained by the apocalypse, Garcia is furious about the buzzkill he finds everywhere in his world, but Gillan struts in the role of "rock singer" the way Charles Laughton tears into the juicy part of Henry VIII.

Of course, this record also signals the beginning of this group's end. For it is here that Blackmore starts to assert his dominance on the band. No more steely blue-eyed soul, and no more Jon Lord-led excursions into jazz odysseys or collaborations with the Royal Philharmonic. Man, it is time to shred, and "Child In Time" and "Flight Of The Rat" do just that. The long solos on these tracks still click, and they still make Eddie Van Halen sound vapid by comparison, but they also reveal how much ego tripping was going on. In three short years, it would all be over, and the sucking (Stormbringer, anyone?) would begin.

With the result that most would forget the effective and sometimes brilliant strategies Deep Purple made to the metal playbook. There was not an eighties hair band that did not rip them off in some wise, and, it goes without saying, without a tenth of the flair that these five had. And, as long as Slash and Kirk Hammet are still wielding axes, Deep Purple's influence remains vital to this day. If you want hipper proof, just put on the oh-so-earnest Mars Volta's Frances The Mute and tell me those guys haven't been going through the Nag Champa by the case and scribbling late into the meth-ed out night while Made In Japan and Burn (the title tracks is so absurd it achieves something like profundity) are bled white under the diamond stylus.

Just remember, though, if you're going to have a party to save your soul, still you gotta be sly. Like a demon's eye.

~ Joe Milazzo