Deep Purple-In rock, 1970

Bringing Ian Gillan and Roger Glover into this band marked a bit of a change in style. This change would be the beginnings of what is probably the band's best and most successful period. I think this was the point where the band began to stretch out a bit and widen their structures. I think that Gillan's vocals especially helped the band to develop a far more fluid sound starting with this album. Deep Purple unfortunately get lost in the shadows of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin at times. Those two bands were giants in this genre at that time, but it's certainly arguable that Purple made just as much of an impact and were in the long run almost as influential as those other two bands. The opener "Speed King" manages to set the feel of this album. At first it's very in your face with the vocals coming right on and the music doesn't really pick up until almost a minute in. Yet when it does, it really takes off with long winding passages of layers of music just going in all directions but eventually they all come back to the same point. Ritchie Blackmore just peels off riffs effortlessly and everyone fits perfectly. Jon Lord attacks his Hammond organ like a man possessed. Bassist Roger Glover and Ian Paice make up one of the most underrated rhythm sections of all time. Much of the album continues somewhat like the opener with bits of organizes parts of songs intertwined with the crazy musical rampages in between. Still everyone in the band is skilled enough to pull it off and I am sure that this was not an easy task. These guys truly knew out to throw everything in a song yet make it sound extraordinary without seeming overly self-indulgent. "Child in time" is the longest track on the album at a little over ten minutes and it's probably the biggest highlight of the album. It begins with a spacey feel to it followed by some great screams by Gillan and then the music just takes off into a frenzy before returning to the more level music. "Flight of the rat" allows the band to get into more of a groove early on. The jam parts on this track may be a bit more confined, but no less spectacular. This whole album and all of their albums between 1970 and 1973 are just prime examples of how crazy instramental parts and solid song structures can work together. Of course you have to be very talented and creative to pull it off. Even though band is never called a progressive band, I think there are definite elements here that are very much like progressive music of the 70's. Just a very exciting, charged album that still seems very relevant to me.