Title: Machine Head Artist: Deep Purple Label: Warner Bros. Release Date: 1972 Rating: 4 Skulls
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Reviewed by Solomon:
Trying to review material that was popular before my time always puts me in a bind. Rock from the 60's and 70's often doesn't do it for me. Some people can bridge the generation gap better than others, and I can say I've learned to accept bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith, but they will never hit me the way Metallica, Queensryche, and Testament did, to name just a few. A big part of this is technological: older bands just didn't have the kind of equipment to get that blitzkrieg, buzz-saw guitar-from-hell tone and fat, crystal-clear production I've come to expect from modern groups. My prejudice has always been that pre-80's rock/metal was a warm-up period to the "real thing."

So, how can I give Machine Head a fair shake? Well, I could never put this up against Master of Puppets or Rising Force and be unbiased, but there's some heavy stuff happening here in a time when being "metal" wasn't a religious obligation. Obviously, Deep Purple is one of the great grandfathers of hard rock/metal, and Richie Blackmore's classical leanings in "Highway Star" preclude Yngwie and Rhoads by a good ten years or so. The greatest discovery here is how much Jon Lord's snarling keyboard/organ work becomes like a second guitar, complementing the songs with his own leads ("Maybe I'm A Leo," "Never Before") and backing up the rhythm with thick, distored tones ("Smoke On The Water," "Space Truckin'"). "Lazy" features an awesome, loud, unnerving organ intro that puts "Mr. Crowley" to shame. "Space Truckin'" must have scared people to death back then. The keys are almost indispensible in giving this tune its "metal" edge. "Leo" features a great, laidback groove, and I like the vibrato Blackmore adds to the first few bars of his lead. Blackmore's blues/pentatonic lead work throughout the record isn't strikingly original, but it all cooks just the same. "Smoke On The Water": that immortal riff, the staccato bass line, the shuffling drum parts. This is still a heavy, potent song when you just let it sink in and forget it's the riff everyone plays when they don't know anything else. Wherever you're at with this, Machine Head is a piece of history and a good piece of music in its own right.

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